The Update

Just a quasi-quick-style update on the fun of gallstones. We went in for her appointment with her surgeon on Monday morning at 9:30 and my wife hasn't been able to come home since.

She was sent to the ER that morning, but the E in ER doesn't necessarily mean emergency. We were in that room from about 10:30ish until about 8 p.m. when we finally got into her room. She didn't get admitted until 5:30 and from that point on were told that we'd be going up to her room in just a few minutes. There were a lot of few minute blocks.

The rooms are nice, as hospital rooms go. All the rooms are private with lcd flat screen tv's. She has her own bathroom and a nice big window. Of course she's constantly on pain meds and hooked up to an IV so this isn't quite the valentine's bed and breakfast she was hoping for. Especially since she isn't allowed to eat anything but ice.

We found that she has stones stuck in her ducts. It's all very complicated down there, if you want details, check out webMD. But the stomach, liver, pancreas, and gallstones are all connected with little ducts, and the stones are stuck in there. We were told that they would have to get the stones out before taking the gallbladder, but they spend over 3 hours and couldn't even get into the duct because of the blockage. So tomorrow, sometime, she's having her gallbladder out, and hopefully just after that she'll have the ducts cleaned out and we'll be able to bring her home this weekend. However, the resident who was assisting with the failed duct removal this morning said that they would wait a few days after the gallbladder is out to go back in and clean out the stones. We really hope that this isn't the way it will be.

So I've been spending most of my time at the hospital while my parents have been taking care of the kids. My son T is trying to take advantage of this by creating and changing some of the rules around the house. My personal favorite is his nightly candy. Each night he gets a Flintstone Vitamin, we've always just called it candy. So my dad was trying to find it and uncovered our backlog of Christmas candy. T tried to convince him that the candy was somewhere inside this bag. Even telling my dad that, "I get a lollipop every night. Daddy gives me one before I go to bed." He didn't get the lollipop, but he tried.

I'll be back with more fun medical updates in a couple days. She's doing as well as she can be under the circumstances. Pretty pain free and just exhausted.