Warning: EXTREMELY LONG. I fully don't expect anyone to read this entire post, but I wanted to write it down for posterity's sake!
I haven't posted in almost three months. What the heck? I guess I just didn't want to. :) A lot has transpired during this hiatus, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, girl get-togethers, surgery, new babies, and perhaps a few other things.
For now, I'll focus on a recent occurance! Sometime in early December Ryan and I went to eat at Ruby River. I ordered a delicious stake and we had a nice dinner. About an hour after we ate I started feeling a dull ache right in the middle of my chest/sternum area. It was a somewhat familiar feeling as almost a year to the date prior I'd had a similar occurance, yes, it was the lovely feeling of passing a gallstone. This gallbladder attack lasted all through the night and well into the next day. Over the coming weeks I had many more attacks which led me to see a surgeon, have an ultrasound, and eventually schedule a surgery. Of course, they were too busy to get me in until January 8th, so they threw some narcotics my way and assured me it was perfectly fine to wait three weeks for surgery. The big day finally came and Ryan and my mom accompanied me to the hospital. The surgery was 90 minutes long, I stayed in recovery for about seven hours, and then I was on my way.
Now, this is a very common, fairly simple laparoscopic procedure. I went into this thinking, "Oh, this will be a piece of cake! I'm gonna live up all the time off I have from work!" It didn't quite turn out that way. For one, I was not prepared for the pain from the incisions! When the nurse in same day surgery had me stand up to use the restroom, the pain caused tears to spring my eyes! Ha ha! Aside from that, the first three days after surgery went quite well. The fourth day however, things changed. I got an intense pain in the middle of my chest and couldn't breathe and it was quite awful so I went to the ER. They initially thought it might be a blood clot in my lungs but ruled it and anything to do with my chest out after doing a CT, EKG, X-RAY and blood tests. By then the pain was gone cause I was so doped up on dilaudid so they sent me home. From then on I got sicker and sicker. I called my surgeon's office the next day to tell them how nauseous and itchy and sick I was, and the nurse told me I was just having an allergic reaction to the medication (yeah, whatever). By the following day, I was so sick (wretched vomiting-sorry) I didn't know what to do. I called my surgeon who, wouldn't take my call but told the answering service to tell me to go the the ER. Whatever jerk, I was just there less than two days ago, and all they did was drug me up and send me home! Sure, why don't I go and pay another $150 copay! Anyway, I DID end up going because I wanted to rule out anything serious, and things just didn't seem right. After doing ANOTHER CT and more blood tests the cute ER doc came in to tell me they're admitting me. Even though I knew something was wrong, I was shocked! I've never stayed overnight in a hospital. (Hmmm, actually that is totally untrue as I'd worked graveyards for EIGHT years at the hospital, but anyway, not as a patient.)
I suppose yellow eyes, root-beer colored urine, and crazy itching all over by body might have been an indication to some people that something was wrong with my liver, but I didn't catch that, especially when my nurse said I was just having allergic reactions to medicine and I figured I was just dehydrated from not being to keep anything down in days. Anyway, I had to transfer to Mckay-Dee (which is joyous to be a patient at your place of employment) since my surgeon didn't have rights at Davis. The RN told me I HAD to go by ambulance, but I asked my doctor if we could just drive, and he overruled the nurse, thank goodness. By the time my mom and I got to Mckay's ER (after cruising home to get some of my belongings-oops) they told me they were admitting me directly to room 4207. Wait a second, my sis-in-law Missy was in room 4204 after just delivering her and Weston's first baby boy! They told me surgical was full and OB is their overflow. What a crazy coincidence.
I stayed the night there-and by the way, they wouldn't let me have anything to eat or drink, not even an ICE CHIP-and the next morning I went to Nuclear medicine for a HIDA scan (TWO hours on this skinny flat table!). I guess that's when they discovered there was a stone that "got loose" when they took out the gallbladder and it was lodged in my main bile duct which was causing my bile to back up in the liver, thus causing the liver to shut down. So, I went back to my room to await my next procedure, an ERCP. While waiting, it was nice having Missy and I only three doors away from each other, so family members were able to kill two birds with one stone. Along with my family I had some great friends who came to see me in the hospital. Thanks for coming Denise, Amberlee, Liz, Cassie, and Ashley. Love you girls!
So when I find out the ERCP is done in the GI lab, I immediately text my friend Cameron who works there. I told him I would be coming over later. He responded by saying, "Wow, you're having an ERCP, that's a huge procedure." Oh gee, great. So after waiting all day the transporter (my co-worker) took me to the GI lab. Upon arriving I was greeted by Cameron who made it oh-so-fun! It definitely helped ease any nerves I may have had. He, along with my nurse teased me about things they would do to me while I was "out." My mom thought the nurse looked familiar and asked, "Are you a Schenck?" The nurse's face was priceless as she didn't know how to respond when I finally told her the Schenck's are a family we know! She said, I was just wondering how you knew my reputation! We all laughed and laughed! Anyway, soon the GI doc came in and continued to tell me about the procedure and what would happen. This was the basic gist of the conversation:
Dr. Porter: "Hi Sweetheart, I'm Doctor Porter and I'll be doing your ERCP today. Basically we take a tube with a scope, go down your throat and esophagus , into the stomach, through the small intestine, and back up through the main bile duct. Then we look for the stone, then use a hook to cut the stone out, pull out the hook and put in a balloon that we'll take up above the stone, blow it up, and bring it forced the stone back down into your stomach." (Say wha?)
Me: (Say wha?) "Oh, ok."
Dr. Porter: I've done this procedure more than any doctor in the state of Utah. The national average length of time for this procedure is 90 minutes, my average is eight minutes. The national average risk for pancreatitis is 20%, my percentage doesn't exist because it's never happened. The fact is you'll get pancreatitis if we don't the the stone out, or your liver shuts down completely, and then you can die. Any questions?"
Me: "Well, alrighty then."
It was funny that he was so confident in his skill, but I really liked it too. It was nice to know I was in such good hands. Before I knew it, I was done and people were talking to me. Dr. Porter told me it took ten minutes, so I guess I just bumped up his average. Before I left the nurse looked at my back and said, "ok, it looks good." Turns out they had put on some fake tattoos during my procedure. Ha! So funny. I can only imagine the position I must've been in for them to get to the middle of my back! Oh dear.
Anyway.......I got back to my room and after awhile they let me have some broth. It was so heavenly! Ryan came up and ended up staying with me that night in the hospital, even though he had to be up by 7am to get to work in Salt Lake. It was very sweet! I finally got to go home the next day, and by then was finally starting to feel not so nauseous. I went back to work a week and a half later and ironically enough, my first week back to work I got strep throat, and had to miss another two days. Nothing like using up all your personal leave time!
That was all about a month ago and I can say I'm feeling great and completely back to normal! I know I had some complications and it wasn't fun at all, but after researching things I realize that things could have really been worse. I'm so grateful they weren't and so grateful for wonderful people in my life who are so caring and supportive. I'm especially grateful for my mom who was there for me through everything from driving me to and fro, to cleaning up vomit, and coming to check on me on her lunch break everyday!
I know Amberlee took pictures of me in the hospital so I'll have to get them and post them. HA HA, yeah right!
My mom, Kellee and me on the wave-runners. Ohhhh, I wanna go back!
