GET IT OUT ..... Update

Well, I am now four days post-op and eating fairly normally. Have had no problems with food shooting straight through - thanks the gods that be! The last thing I need is the runs. Took a few days for the old bowels to get moving again (not bad considering I had nothing to eat for over 36 hours), but all is back to normal now.

I am itchy from the tape I have to put on my belly. Have to keep the sutures covered or my clothes catch on them - that hurts! Plus I don't want any infections, so I am putting antibiotic ointment on the incisions and covering them with gauze and tape. I am allergic to just about all tapes known to man but have found one that only makes me a little red and itchy - some make me blister and peel off my skin. No sense adding insult to injury!



Lots of swelling around my poor bellybutton. Makes me look about 6 months' prego.... yuck. And it is quite colourful, what with the incision (red), the bruising (yellow and a few purple spots) and the sutures (bright blue). This is where the largest trochar gets inserted and wiggled about. And it is also where they extract the offending organ. Will have to remember to ask the surgeon just how big my gall bladder was when he yanked the damn thing out.



But it is all getting better, slowly, day by day. Walking the dog is short and turtle slow (at least in Zoe's mind... good thing I taught her 'easy' a long time ago so she knows to slow down to an amble when I say that). We only go about one block total so far but today was a teensy bit faster than it has been. She's itching for a good hard run, I can tell, but she's sticking to me like glue so is tolerating the minimal exercise quite well. Maybe tomorrow we will go to the dog park and I will meander a short distance while she races about. She's such a good dog.... doesn't let me out of her sight. The cats, on the other hand, could care less....

The biggest thing about all this is how sore my back (on my ribs) is on the left side. When they do this surgery, they manoeuver the OR table, which is multi-jointed, so that you are tilted with your right side up (cuz that is where your liver and gall bladder reside) and kinda curved to the left. So the brunt of my weight was on this one area of my ribs towards the back about mid upper arm level. For close to two hours. It aches and is sore to the touch. I have to take pain meds more for that than for the abdominal discomfort, which is really limited to my poor protruding and bruised up umbilicus.

So I am lounging about, taking it easy for the most part. Trying to get all healed up in a hurry so I can get on with my life. Good thing there are lots of blogs to visit, cuz I get bored easily with TV and reading.