posted
I'm glad to hear they figured it out and took care of it. Abdominal surgery is tough, though, so make sure he does not say "I'm fine" and start doing too much when he gets home.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I'm quite a way away from them, so all I'll be able to do is badger him on the phone every now and then. I suspect, though, that he'll be delighted to have an opportunity to sprawl out on the couch and read without having to feel like he should be doing something productive. Their dog isn't going to be too happy with the situation though.
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quote:I suspect, though, that he'll be delighted to have an opportunity to sprawl out on the couch and read without having to feel like he should be doing something productive.
posted
Good, Noemon. My dad went back to work too soon after a hernia operation, and regretted it. get him books!
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If the procedure is laparoscopic then he will be able to be up and around fairly soon (a week). Unless he doesn't want to of course.
I have also had my gallbladder out. Apparently how painful it is depends on where the stone is. Mine was in the most painful spot.
I had similar symptoms to AJ when I had my attacks only I would vomit too. After about 4 months of them they finally figured out what it was, but I pushed the surgery back a month because of performances.
Horrible idea.
I had been having the attacks at least once a week and then one night I had an attack and the pain would not go away. When my mom woke up and found me on the couch dehydrated from throwing up and in excruciating pain we went to the emergency room. My surgery was scheduled for the next day so they just gave me lots of anti-nausea meds and a morphine drip to keep me comfortable.
After the surgery they said if I had waited just a little longer it would have ruptured.
In other words Kayla, I would get it removed. Or at least get it regularly checked out.
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Bad news. He had a lingering mild fever and oddly low blood pressure. The doctors discovered that he's got a fairly severe abdominal infection going on, and he's been moved to intensive care. They've got him pumped full of antibiotics in a bid to bring the infection under control and prevent it from getting into his blood. My mom told me that "his doctor expects him to survive". Those have to be some of the least reassuring words in the English language, or at least that's how it feels right now. It was that comment that really drove home how serious this has turned. I'm seeing about getting a flight back to Kansas, but may just drive it. I'd kind of rather be alone than in a plane full of people right now.
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Kayla actually *passing* a gallstone once they get too big can cause a rupture, and bile can escape. In my case apparently the gallstones were huge. I have a fairly large incision,for laporoscopic surgery, and they still had to crush up the gallstones in order to get them out of the opening.
With Noemon's dad I can't help but wonder if there had already been some tears, which is why the infection is so serious.
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I'm glad that they successfuly removed it and that your father will be okay. Don't be too suprised if he is more that one or two days getting over the infection.
Both of my parents have had to have their gall bladders removed. In my mom's case she had a gall bladder attack when she was walking from her car to the clinic that she was a nurse at. In my dad's case they discovered some large gall stones when going over the tests done just before his emergency appendectomy. They investigated further and decided to remove the gall bladder as soon as he had sufficiently recovered from his appendectomy, which he almost didn't survive. Note, if you have symptoms that might be from an appendicitis or gall bladder attack get them checked out immediately. My dad walked around for two days with a ruptured appendix before going in to see his doctor and it almost cost him his life. My mom said that she had been ignoring what may have been symptoms of a gall bladder problem over the weekend before she suffered her gall bladder attack.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I wish that I had read the second page before sending by previous post. I hope that the infection gets cleared up quickly. In my dad's case he was in the hospital for a week and then once he was home they had a nurse come by for two weeks giving him IV antibiotics. It wasn't until they released him from the hospital that I was sure that he would be alright. When he does get home, and I am sure that he will, I second Elizabeth's comment that he should take it easy for a while.
posted
Well, the see-saw continues. They've got him stabilized, and are now talking about his "making a full recovery" rather than "his chances of survival being good", so that's definitely a step in the right direction. I was so freaked out by all of this that I just kind of stopped functioning. I'd intended to take off work and make arrangements to go to KS, but instead I went home and fell asleep. Had horrible, vivid dreams (about a children's toy chicken giving birth to a a brood of mostly human children that I was responsible for, oddly enough. They emerged from the nest anywhere between one and nine years old. I know that that has to have something to do with my dad's situation, but I don't have a clue how to connect the dots) too. Anyway, my mom's good news was a pretty welcome way to wake up.
At this point they're expecting him to be in the hospital for the next 3-5 days. I'm really glad my mom is still working (my dad's retired)--this way they've got decent insurance. I'm going to hold off on visiting KS for now, since I'd rather see him when we can fully interact, rather than just peer down at him as he lies there in a hospital bed. This was my mom's suggestion, so I don't think that she's feeling like she needs the company right now. I can't believe how solid she's been throughout this whole thing.
[Edit--"t" changed to a "w", changing the meaning of a fairly key sentence.]
posted
He's doing even better now, and has been taken out of intensive care, so that's a good thing.
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I'm glad he's getting better. Positive thoughts have been sent your way (have been for a while, but forgot to post it.)
Posts: 459 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Yay! As far as long reaching side effects from the gallbladder being gone:
Occasionally I get heartburn that is *actual* heartburn that hurts nearly identically in location to a GB attack. But it is much, much fainter than the actual attacks. It actually is acid reflux and something like fatamodine causes it to clear right up. If it gets really bad you can get a doc to prescribe something for it. My theory is that a little bit of stomach acid gets into the spot where the scar is from the gallbladder, and irritates it. I've heard similar stories from other gallbladderless people.
The other thing that will happen at first, but less frequently as time goes on, is weird poo. The gallbadder helps control the release of bile into the system which is what aids in fat digestion. Your liver has to take over this function and doesn't regulate it as well. Of course since a bad gallbladder was basically useless it was already doing it somewhat, but it still takes time to adjust.
I got a lot of really loose "green" poo, which meant a lot of bile was going through, then sometimes it would go light tan which meant almost no bile was going through. It varies by person of course and also on what you are eating. If there are major problems with any sort of food you know pretty rapidly. I'd also say that my bowel movements are more frequent now, and I have less of a window of time where I can "hold it" than before. I don't know if these are true of everyone, but these are the things I've noticed. Nothing earth shattering, and I know I'm much better off gallbladderless. My great grandmother, didn't have her GB out because the surgery was too dangerous back then, and eventually died from cancer that started there. They believe the constant GB irritation was one of the things that started the cancer. So in the long term, I'm far, far, better off having had it out young. The bad gallbladder thing turns out to be a family history trait, that no one told me about because I'm the only one in this generation to have had the problem. In your father's case it's probably much more likely do to other causes than genetics because he's so much older.
quote: Had horrible, vivid dreams (about a children's toy chicken giving birth to a a brood of mostly human children that I was responsible for, oddly enough. They emerged from the nest anywhere between one and nine years old.
If this was a less serious thread, I would have a few things to say to you about this, young man.....
I am glad he is doing better, and I hope he recovers fully.
As to how the dream relates to this, you were sort of the "father figure" to these....chicks.... right? And they were born, which is something that usually happens to human children in a hospital...
posted
He came home from the hospital yesterday, and seems to be doing well. He's taking some fairly potent antibiotics (no idea what, unfortunately), and my mom is keeping a fairly close eye on him. I think that the crisis is officially over though, thank god.
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Oh, and Kwea, the half human half chickens looked *nothing* like me! I'm shocked! Shocked! at the implication. Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Upper half. From the waist down they looked *just* like me--all bipedal like.
Seriously though, it was the freakiest dream I've had in probably a decade. There was this storm raging outside, and the inside of the house was lit only by the nearly continual flashes of lightning, and these bizarre half human things (all of which had Howard the Duck-like beaks, regardless of whatever other human or chicken features they had) were...oozing, sort of, out of the plastic nest that the toy chicken fit into. They'd be egg sized when they first started coming out, and then just zoom up to full size once they were free from the confines of the nest.
CT, isn't it strange how the body responds to stuff that it officially decideds should be labled as "All Too Much"? In the past I've always gone all cold and rational in high stress situations, but none of those have ever involved a threat to one of my parents' lives, so I suppose it's not quite the same.
Interestingly enough, I have the "low blood pressure in response to high stress situations" thing too.
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posted
"Had horrible, vivid dreams (about a children's toy chicken giving birth to a a brood of mostly human children that I was responsible for, oddly enough. They emerged from the nest anywhere between one and nine years old."
Ha ha. Noemon, check out these lyrics:
Half God, Half Chicken-Jeb Puryear
Half God, half chicken Yeah baby we're humans Spend half the day scatchity? scratch Rootin' out in the blueberry patch Spend the other half wondering why We ever lived and we have to die
From time to time we just play On the beauty of a cosmic ray Imaginations spinning tales Illuminated vapor trails Destinations open wide See what's out on the other side
Breeds an awful strange disposition When you're half God and you're half chicken Enormous brain, opposable thumbs Look how impossible we've become ...
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I'm glad to hear that your dad is doing better, Noemon. It's definitely something that shouldn't be ignored.
I had my gallbladder out 9 years ago. It was an attack that lasted 12 hours that finally made me go to the hospital, where the ultrasound tech said I had a couple of hundred gallstones.
I had surgery at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday and was released from the hospital the next Monday, IIRC (or could have been surgery Wednesday and released Tuesday - was six days, anyway). They told me that I would have died within 24 hours if I had not had the surgery. Because of the emergency nature of the situation, I didn't have the laproscopy, and have a very large scar now. I joked with my mom, "there goes my bikini-modeling career." (I've always been overweight - there has never been any chance of modeling bikinis!) I also have the weird poo issues, but just live with it. My sister had her gallbladder out, too, but she had the laproscopy.
The only other issue that comes to mind for me, post-surgery, is weird things relating to the scar tissue and muscles. I occasionally get a cramp in the muscles around the scar, kind of like a charley horse. There is numbness below the scar, as well.
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