This Valentine's day I got an open insides surgery (in Off-topic)

Feb 10, clan wall : "Bummer... medical problems"
After one full day of poking, proding, ultrasound and x-rays, doctors are still split between a diagnosis of acute colecystitis (gallbladder inflamation) and/or duodenitis and/or gastritis.
Got a few mild tranquilizer shots combined with god knows what else (was too much in pain to ask), now I'm back home and feeling far more stable, got a few more pills to swallow, not allowed to eat anything for the next 2-3 days (other than liquids).
Getting bloodwork back early morning, posibly also getting admitted into the hospital depending on results of additional tests tomorrow and progress of pain... and if things go really, really bad, even surgery is possible.

11 Feb, clan wall
On Monday I'm getting a more thorough checkup in a larger city, possibly also the surgery.


Drove over 150km (that's more or less 100 of your imperial miles :P) and got emergency after a nasty flareup in the night between Friday and Saturday, got comitted on the 12th Saturday, got most tests done then in the emergency wing, got stabilized until Monday 14th for laparoscopic surgery, the extent of the "damage" was too large to handle like that, they proceeded to cut me open the traditional way (from just below the sternum to just above the bellybutton)... I "lost" a heavily puss-filled gallbladder, with a bonus 2 cm diameter almost spherical gallstone inside (which I got to keep, btw)... and now I'm recovering (apparently, quite nicely given my excessive weight), but I'm still having trouble doing stuff like, oh, say, being able to lie flat on a horizontal surface without excruciating pain.
I'll keep you guys updated, should be around from now, but not extremely often for a few weeks.



For the less squeamish, there will be pics when I feel a bit better, right now my entire lower abdomen is covered in really tight tension wraps to keep the sutures from becoming too stressed and exploding, so there's not much to see, and the gallstone is in a larger package I don't feel like unwrapping right now :P

that is likely just how the doctor felt! ;)

glad you are okay and back, i was getting concerned!

Gnar! I'd add a get well/feel better sentiment, but I'm in too much sympathy pain to manage...

You really try to earn your name. Get well soon.

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Warning: What has been seen cannot be unseen. (Hope you feel better soon!)

I was fine with seeing the giant stitched up hole in your abdomen.

The man boobs? Not so much prepared for that.

*grin*

Best wishes l hope you heal up quick :)

They're actually making the whole process far more difficult (well, not just the moobs but the body fat in general).
Well, I lost 10 pounds already, and only a fraction of a pound thanks to the surgery, and planning to lose quite a bit more... it's not like I haven't lost weight before.
I actually lost almost 40% body weight in little over a year in the middle of college)... I just haven't been able to maintain it long (first job took care of that by basically torpedoing any possibility of a physical workout routine.

Yeah, I know, just excuses... so let's see how low I go this time and how long I can maintain it :P
You know, given the extra incentive of extra-painful death through literal disemboweling hanging above my head :))

WARNING - this is even more icky than the others...

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5 MP much higher quality flash photo taken from above, me on my back on the bed with all bandages stripped out, before cleaning and redressing.
Drain holes seem to have already healed much nicer than I expected (drain locations - inside the bellybutton, one to the right of the incision//left on picture and vertically about below the manboob, last one to the side and only weakly seen on this pic).

All in all, other than the pain, looks just fine as it could look healing-wise.

The areolas, the stitches, and the trocar incision make for a very confused looking face. Just sayin'.

About a decade ago, I did an internship at an ambulatory surgical center. I sat in on a laparascopy, which is a very basic, very routine procedure (we did about five each day there). Even though it makes sense, I was shocked at how the trocar is inserted. It's pretty much just a lot of hard pushing and turning until that baby is in.

Believe you me Sickone it feels much better to be without your Gallbladder! If you had any of the pains i had when mine was flared up and blocked you will come to enjoy the pain free ^_^ Now the only thing i have to watch is what i eat... it tends to run right through me lol

Yeah, the "run through" part has me a tiny bit worried too, because it's sort of already happening to some small degree even with the diet food I've been gulping since they allowed me to eat... hope I don't end up needing to wear adult diapers :P

Got the stitches removed today... ungh, such a WEIRD feeling... wouldn't call it "pain", but it's close, and really uncomfortable.
Apparently, I had 15 stitches, one was hidden *inside* the bellybutton. Ouch. That one is the most obnoxious right now.

I was lucky they didn't have to do all out surgery on me so they were able to use glue stuff to keep it together. But when they took the drain tube out when they let me out of the hospital, now that was a strange feeling lol.

Yeesh, the drain tubes, now that was pretty weird too... they literally took a razor blade, cut off the tiny area of skin that was attached to the tubes, then they just yanked the tubes out one by one (it didn't hurt much either, it was just a very odd feeling).
I was all like "what, aren't you going to make a stitch or something" and they were just "nope", slapped a band-aid on and that was it.
Freaky.