I took another visit to Hillcrest Hotel; I mean hospital, last week. The usual pain in my abdomen, but also something new; a pain in my lower back, and up my shoulder blades and this awful pressure below my ribcage…and still the constant nausea.
{You would think that with all this going on and me not managing to stomach much, that I’d be feeling pretty fab when stepping on the scale, but just my luck it seems, my body is still in “trauma mode” and so stores anything I do manage to get down my throat – grrr… What’s with that!?}
Anyway aside from my frustrating body issues…it turned out after scopes and x-rays and ultrasounds, that I have Gallstones and that my Gallbladder needs to be removed! Never a dull moment round here!
But this has opened up a whole new debate… usually a gallbladder op is pretty simple and routine, but as usual in my case never a simple thing! Because of the previous surgeries and scar tissue and other issues, doing it laprascopically may not be possible.
The info we have been given is once again terrifying for me and I’ve had a week now of weighing up the pro’s and con’s and trying to make the decision that the doctors won’t make for me due to the risks involved! To Shane and I this decision just seems impossible...
The issue is this, my pain threshold is now incredibly high and so I am feeling discomfort and bouts of extreme pain due to the gallstones, but am in pain daily anyway in my abdomen so on the whole I am able to push it aside, put on those big girl panties of mine and carry on. {Which apparently in itself is not altogether a good thing.}
So my first response was that if I can deal with it – no more ops… The thought of not knowing in what state I am going to emerge from another op scares the daylights out of me – so I’d rather deal with what I know. But in the vein of never being simple – you apparently can’t just leave a sick gall bladder!
There are risks of inflammation, stones in the bile duct, peritonitis, and more so something HAS to be done…
The options I have are to open me up in the small area above the old scar and go in and remove the gallbladder and hopefully not touch any of the previous trauma area. The doctors can then assess conservatively and then at the same time have a look at my abdomen and the adhesions and if possible try to loosen the adhesions allowing more mobility of my internal organs and hopefully reducing my daily pain. But I am told that the surgery alone will be high risk and going into my abdomen and poking around can open up the possibility of bowel nicks, septicaemia, and peritonitis amongst other risks, all of which can cost me my life.
I then go back to the fact that one would think: okay no problem, let’s just leave the abdomen and go in take out the gallbladder and get that “issue” out of the way… but again not as easy as that as depending on the adhesions, the scar tissue and how vascular my abdomen still is or isn’t they may not be able to get to my gall bladder without encountering problems…sigh*
So in a nutshell I have no idea what to do! How do I make a decision when even the experts can’t or won’t decide what is best?
I guess once again I simply need to have faith and trust that the picture will become clear and that we will make the right decision.
Wish me luck!
