OK, Another Gallbladder Update

Yes, that’s a sack of french fries holding a liver hostage (the gallbladder is that little green thing sticking out from the bottom of the liver). I love this drawing SO MUCH.

When I wrote my last gallbladder surgery update I really did think it was the last. But I feel like I should do a little more follow up for those of you who are curious (you know, those of you who sit around your house all day refreshing my blog and wondering about my gallbladder).

I last checked in a week after surgery, and I was feeling really good. I would say I was 90% or so. But it did take another three weeks to get that last 10% back.

A few days after Christmas (about a week after surgery) I drove to Buffalo with the kids to visit my mom. My back was still giving me some trouble, and I was worried that sitting in one position in the car for hours at a time was going to hurt. But actually, it was the most comfortable I’d been since the surgery. I took it totally easy in Buffalo, venturing out to stores that were close by a couple of times, but mostly being lazy.

At one point one of my kids asked me to get them something (or maybe make them some food? I don’t remember) and my mom was awesome. She’s an operating room nurse, so she knows a bit about surgery. She told my kids that I was only a week post-op, that I’d basically been stabbed in the abdomen a bunch of times, and that if I worked where she did I would have to take six weeks off, and that they should be asking me what I need!

Just a couple of days after getting back from Buffalo I had to leave for Las Vegas for CES. I was going there with my two Parenting Bytes co-hosts to tape a podcast episode and meet with some companies. I’d been to CES a few times before, and I knew how much walking I would be in for. As good as I felt, I still couldn’t walk as fast or as far as I was used to. And, I wasn’t supposed to lift anything over ten pounds, which was awkward with my giant suitcase. I had to ask random stranger to lift it on and off of things for me.

I did the best I could. I took it easy when I could. But there were times when it was just easier to walk someplace, even carrying my heavy bag, than to wait in a taxi or shuttle line. And the time I stopped off at the drugstore for a case of water and some Diet Dr Pepper and snacks, well, that might have crossed over into stupid. But I survived.

Still, though, two weeks out I was having trouble getting up all the stairs in my house without being wildly out of breath (it’s a four story house, so not exactly easy to get from top to bottom even without surgery).

Three-and-a-half weeks after my surgery I had my follow-up appointment with my surgeon. I mentioned to her that digestively things were going well. A little ickyness here and there, but since I’m lactose intolerant and eat dairy all freaking day, it’s usually due to that, as far as I can tell (in other words, no worse than before the surgery). And the clear protective thing they put on my incisions still hadn’t detached from the deep incision in my belly button, except how it was a rolled up brown cruddy thing. (It fell off a few days later).

She cleared me to exercise, as long as it wasn’t anything that engaged my core too much, like leg lifts or sit-ups; I should wait a few more weeks for those. Not that I really wanted to do those things, but good to know.

I did, however, want to get back to some cardio. Not just because it’s winter and my sweaters are covering an ever-growing belly, but because before my surgery I’d been working on a campaign for an exercise accessory, and that was supposed to wrap up by the end of this month. I wanted to get back to it. But I still wasn’t really feeling like it.

Then, late last week, I suddenly felt fine. Like, suddenly. I could run up all three flights of stairs from the bottom of the house to the top without feeling like I needed oxygen. I shoveled really fast during the snowstorm and felt great. Today I walked all over the place in the snow, which used muscles I don’t usually use, and felt good. Tomorrow morning I’m going to start exercising again.

So, I’d say that recovery really took a full month. A full month to feel totally back to normal (except for the lifting stuff and pfft, who wants to lift stuff?).

Over the weekend, though, I also realized something else. Many people had told me that after the surgery they felt better than they had in years. I didn’t really anticipate feeling better than I had, because as far as I could tell, my gallbladder was only hurting me when I had a gallstone attack, which happened very rarely.

But then I realized that since the surgery, I wasn’t having lower back pain. For the past few years I’d been getting lower back pain. I had to take Advil at some point most days. I just attributed it to getting older and working at a computer for long stretches of time.

But I still sit at my computer for long stretches every day, and my back feels fine! Could it really have been my gallbladder? Seems like too much of a coincidence not to have been! This is a great side benefit that I didn’t even see coming.

So, unless something goes wrong, this really should be the last update!

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