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August 28, 2004

Surgery has been completed

I'm sore as hell.

My Gall Bladder surery on Wednesday was a complete success. I was in and out before I even knew what hit me. Here's what I remember about the day's events:

My mom and Aunt Carolyn came up on Wednesday morning, and were here about 7AM. They hung around a bit and had some coffee to wake themselves up while I was busy getting the last of my things together for my stay at mom's We headed for the hospital around 7:30 and arrived about 5 minutes till 8AM.

Since I had preregistered the day before, I was sent upstairs and told to fill out a form. I don't quite recall what the form was for, as mom actually filled the thing out for me. The hardest thing I had to do while waiting was to give a clerk my insurance card so it could be copied. I was called back roughly 10 minutes afterwards.

When I got into the prep area, they had me undress and get into a gown. They had two sizes, small and king size bedsheet. Guess which size I got? A nurse came in and took some blood, while another (who was very very nice) came in and got my vitals. She was impressed with my blood pressure ... but I can't quite recall what it was at this time. All I know is that it was perfect. :)

After the good nurse got my IV taken care of, she brough my mom and aunt back into the room with me. I was given a shot to take off the edge, and the last real thing I recall was the doctor coming in and saying hello. Mom was shocked by how young the doctor was, and I told her I thought she was in her thirties. Mom seemed to think that she was in her early twenties.

Anyhow, I was taken away and brought into a room. Mom said it must have been the surgery room, but it had "Anatestesia Room" or something like that on the door. The nurses put something into my IV and had me breathing pure oxygen. The last thing I recall was the nurse saying "you should be feeling the effects any second now" ... and I suddenly saw doubles of everything. I said "Yup, it sure is" and I heard a nurse say "crap, you're not supposed to say anything. take 5 deep breaths" ... I remember taking 4.

I woke up in the recovery room with someone yelling at me to wake up. I could hardly breath, and I told the nurse who was with me. She said it would come back to me, but since I had the tube in my mouth, my body had to re-adjust itself to breathing again on its own. After a few minutes, I was able to breath normally again. During this time, the nurse asked me what my pain level was between 1 and 10. I told her it was at about an 8. She gave me a shot of something to take away the pain. She asked again a minute later, and I told her it was a 7. Again, I received some more medicine. This went on and on until I was down to a 2 or 3.

By this point, all I knew was that I was EXTREMELY thirsty, my throat hurt, and my stomach was beginning to rumble. The nurse brought me a glass of ice water and asked me if I wanted some crackers. I told her no... too salty. Instead, she offered me gram crackers, which I joyfully accepted. That was the best water and gram crackers I've ever had in my life.

The nurse proceeded to take me out of 1st stage recovery into 2nd stage, where I would meet up with mom and Aunt Carolyn once again. After checking my vitals and making sure I was OK, the nurse brought them back. I really don't remember much of this as I was so thirsty, I was concentrating on the ice water and only the ice water. I recall getting dressed, which was an amazing thing in itself that I was able to get myself dressed, and made my way to the wheelchair. Before I knew it, a kind elderly gentleman was pushing me out of the hospital to my aunt's car. I somehow managed to get up and into the car under my own power.

I don't really remember the trip back to Frankfort.

I recall pulling up to mom's house, and getting out of the car. I made my way inside and eventually made my way back to the bedroom that mom had prepared for me. She said something about all of the color going out of my face and me looking very pale. Next thing I knew, I was out like a light. I don't remember what mom called it, but apparently my blood pressure dropped like a rock from laying back in the car for so long and getting up so fast and moving around all over the place like I did. My body just wasn't ready for what I was wanting it to do.

I woke up from time to time, not really remembering anything about the times that I was awake. The one thing that I can really recall was seeing Amanda at the foot of my bed, feeling a bit more comfortable that I had seen her, and feel back to sleep. Once I was up, however, I was hurting. I've never felt this kind of sore before in my life. I put down the pain pills that the doctor had given me, which only served to make me sleepy ... but I didn't mind as long as I was hurting.

I tell you one thing tho, I didn't sleep well that night. I had continued to put down water all day long, even while I was sleeping. I kept getting choked and waking up in a panic. I would take a couple long sips of water and go back to sleep. That night, the water came rushing back to me with a vengence. It seemed like every hour or so I was up and taking a piss. I would come back to bed, drink more water to get my throat feeling a bit better, and go back to sleep. Boom, and hour later I was up again. Wet, rinse, and repeat.

The pain really hit me yesterday, as I hit the 48 hour peek pain point. It hurt to move, piss, lay down, breath, think, and any other thing one could think of to do. I was in total misery. I tried everything I knew to do to make myself more comfortable, but nothing was working for me. I just eventually gave up and sat with the pain while we watched TV.

Today, I'm feeling much better. I'm home again, back to my comfortable bed and my cats. Amanda is at work this evening, but that's OK. I'm planning on going into the kitchen shortly to make some sort of sense of the mess that it is. I'm gone for three days and there are BUGS all over our kitchen.

Bleh.

Posted by ed at 07:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2004

Surgery on Wednesday

I went to see the surgeon that will be performing my surgery on Wednesday. Her name is Dr. Carolyn Day, and seemed to be a very nice lady.

When I arrived at her office, I was the only person in the room. I payed my fee and sat down to read a magazine. Before too long, I was called back and was asked to wait for the doctor in an examination room.

Pretty standard stuff.

The doctor's suite was several floors up, so instead of sitting down in a chair, I decided to look out the window and watch a bit of life. Almost immediately, I saw a man and what I'm assuming was his son. I noticed that the boy was wearing a white shirt, and upon closer examination I saw the Crusade logo on the front. I smiled a bit and wondered if he was a kid that had been helped, or if his mom or dad was a volunteer and he might have been at the station sometime during Crusade weekend.

Next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door and Dr. Day came in. She was a very nice lady, tall and had blonde hair. She told me to lay back on the examination table and proceeded to push in on my side. Afterwards, she told me to hop up and said "now it's time to draw. I'm not very good at this ... if I was, I doubt I would be in here with you right now." She proceeded to draw out an outline of a human body with a bellybutton. "This is you," she said as she proceeded to draw some organs within the outline. Meanwhile, I was thinking "that's not me ... too narrow".

Anyhow, she drew a liver and a gall bladder and a pancreas and showed how they all connected. She then went on to explain how the liver makes bile and so on and so forth. I explained that I had some some research on this over the past week and had made myself familiar with how the process worked. She told me that the procedure would be a simple one, and would only require four minor incisions. She said that only in special cases would it be necessary to go beyond those four little openings, but if necessary she would do so ... like to save my life. I told her that I was completely OK with that.

The doctor went on to explain that most of the surgeries were rather simple, but there were some people who's anatomy didn't quite fit right or using the scope wasn't giving a clear enough picture, and in these instances the major cut was required. I told her once again that this was okay with me, as I just want to get rid of the darn thing. She then explained how sometimes seeing things in 3D instead of 2D can make all of the difference in the world, as can having your hands in to actually feel instead of using instruments. The worst part about this, according to the doctor, is that I would have to stay in the hospital for a few days. Needless to say this wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear about, but I took it in stride and continued to listen.

After she had finished explaining everything, she asked me if I had any questions. I asked her if it was absolutely necessary for me to be put under in order to go through with the surgery. She said that yes, it was necessary, however there would be someone to watch over me to make sure that my vitals and the like were doing okay. I also asked about a local and how it would affect me. She told me that the local would keep me good and numb for a few hours, and just for good measure she would give me a shot at each of the locations that I had been cut. She also told me that I would probably be very sleepy.

So anyhow, that was last Wednesday. It's now Monday, and I'm roughly a day and a half away from my surgery. Mom and Aunt Carolyn are coming up Wednesday morning to take me to the hospital since Amanda has school and work that morning. Mom wants me to come back to Frankfort with her after the surgery so that she can keep an eye on me, and after discussing it with Amanda tonight I think I'm going to do just that. With everything that Amanda has going on, it's been a tough enough week without having to help me out after being under the knife. It just isn't fair to her. Instead, she's going to come down to Frankfort Wednesday night and love on me till she has to go home. :)

Anyhow, that's all I got for tonight. Everyone wish me luck for Wednesday. Hmm... I wonder how much a gall bladder weighs ... maybe it'll put me under my 300lb mark.

BTW ... I'm currently at 302. :)

Posted by ed at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2004

Gall Stones and such

Last Thursday, I went to have some tests done at the hospital. I had told Dr. Brown that I was having weird pains that the Aciphex wasn't helping, and when I described them she said the symptoms sounded like Gall Stones. So, I went to the hospital to have some tests ran.

Dr. Brown called me on my cell this morning to deliever the news ... the tests were positive. Apparently I have quite a few of them as well. She had an appointment made up for me within a half hour with a surgical doctor over at Baptist East. I go Wednesday to meet with this doctor to see what my options are. According to Dr. Brown, most people in my situation opt to have the Gall Bladder removed. I'm a little shaky on the idea of going under a local, but I have done it before and I came through it okay. I've always had this fear of surgery and being put to sleep, however, and I just can't seem to shake the butterflies I've had all day.

I decided to do some research today and looked up Gall Stones and Gall Bladders, and came across some interesting pages. Did you know that the Gall Bladder's primary function is to store large amounts of bile produced by the liver? The bile is stored in massive quantities to help break down fats in the digestive tract. I found that if you don't have a Gall Bladder, your liver will continue to operate properly, delivering bile to the intestine instead of the Gall Bladder, the main difference being that the concentration isn't nearly as high since there's no place to store the bile at once the bladder is gone. Instead, the bile is going directly to the digestive system in much smaller amounts.

I also read that once you have your Gall Bladder removed, it's very important to take good care of your liver. What this requires I'm not quite sure of yet, but I'll be sure to ask Dr. Brown when I speak to her again. I'm all about doing better things for myself these days, and if I need to make some more changes in order to make my liver work properly, then by damn I'll do it.

In other news, Amanda starts school next week. She's going to be going to the JCC downtown campus, which is nice because I'll be able to see her during the day more. Even better, we'll be able to have lunch together and stuff like that. I'm so happy for her and the steps she's making to improve herself. What's funny is that here I am saying all these great things about her, and she's talking to me at the moment. She asked if I was paying attention to her, which I was. :)

She's so damn cute.

Posted by ed at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2004

I need to blog more

I never really have much of a chance to blog, it seems. There's always something happening that's taking up my time.

I guess that's a good thing.

It used to be that Amanda and I stayed inside constantly. This has definately changed quite a bit over the past four months. We've been going out regularly, visiting new places and making new friends. In addition, we're doing things together like we've never done before. Hell, in the past 5 years, we've probably seen a total of 10 movies together. 4 of those 10 movies have been in the past few months.

I guess you can thank the Prozac for that. I'm definately a different person these days. My attitude has completely changed, and I'm happier than I've been in many years. Even things that used to really get me down don't really phase me that much anymore. I used to be completely consumed by money and work, and these days both are much less important than before. I'm putting Amanda and myself first, for once. Hell, I even turn my cell phone off from time to time during the weekends so that we can actually have some personal time.

So, I went to the doctor today. It was mostly for a follow up visit to get my prescriptions renewed and a general wellness checkup. The doctor was thrilled with my attitude change and we dicussed all kinds of things about the change and how the medicine has effected my personal and business life. She said that everything looked really good.

She was also estatic about my weight loss. Since I visited the doctors office last, I have dropped 20lbs. What the doctor wasn't aware of, and I didn't mention to her, was that I was actually heavier when we changed our eating habits. The day I started, I got on the scale at work to survey the damage ... and I was at 326lbs. Today, on the scale at the doctors office, I was at 304lbs. My initial goal is to get under 300, and then start making other adjustments to help keep the weight off, like walking or some other kind of light exercise.

What's really amazing is what I had to do to drop all of this weight. One day, I had a sudden realization about what I was doing to myself. On a habit, I would put down something like 4-5 Mountain Dews and/or Pepsi 20oz bottles while I was at work. During lunch, I would have at least 2 huge glasses of Coke, and bring one back with me to sip on. One day I started thinking about the amount of sugar that was in these drinks, and how many calories I was putting down per soda. When I figured out the numbers, it was something between 1500-3000 calories per day just on soda alone.

So, Amanda and I made a decision and stopped eating sugar as well as salt (which was her weakness). We've found some great alternatives to sweeten our tea, we only drink diet sodas, and I personally have been drinking much more water. Granted, we do have a bit of sugar now and then as a treat, but it's very rare and it makes us about half sick when we do have some. In addition, Amanda has found some great seasonings that have replaced the salt, but still gives us just as much flavor as before.

Before I left the doctors office today, she recommended one more thing for me to get ... fish oil pills. I had Amanda pick some up while she was out getting a few things this evening. They smell to high hell (it's fish, afterall) but thankfully there's no taste to them at all. According to the doctor, if I take the fish oil pills twice a day, I will cut back on some of the bad cholesterol and triglycerides. My blood pressure is fantastic, but my cholesterol is up just a tad over 200. The good doctor explained that my triglycerides, which are a major risk factor for heart disease, were quite high and needed to come down. She said that my diet will help a great deal, and most likely has already helped to bring the number down. However, since I don't eat fish, the oil pills will help bring my triglyceride down to acceptable levels.

One interesting thing that I learned is that I might be having gall bladder attacks. I explained some of the symptoms that I've been experiencing over the past few months, and said that it really pointed to possibly some gall stones. She said that we can get a scan done to see if that is the case ... the worst possible thing being that the gall bladder may need removing. That really doesn't bother me any, as I've seen tons of people go through the procedure and handle it with no problems.

Anyhow, I think that's enough to talk about for now. I leave you all with a screenshot of my SuSE 9.1 installation. Novell was kind enough to send me their suite of Linux software for free. I'm really beginning to dig them once again. :)

Posted by ed at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)