About Me

My photo
I am mom to an 18 year old boy and identical twin 9 year old boys. I am the wife of a wonderful man. I have had celiac disease for 18 years, and love to share recipes I find or create!

Mar 28, 2013

Gall Bladder Surgery

I have not posted recently, because I had gall bladder surgery! Three weekends ago I went to urgent care with terrible stomach pains, right under my ribs on the right and left side of my stomach. The doc pushed around on my belly and told me I had to go to the ER to get my appendix and gall bladder checked out. I had one very large gall stone, no infection, but man the pain was awful! I just couldn't get comfortable no matter where I sat or laid down. So, I had laproscopic surgery to remove my gall bladder two weeks ago!

The pain the day after surgery was mind numbing. First let me say they insert CO2 into your abdomen to make room to move around in, and to see what they are doing. So the gas is not in your digestive system, and even though they try to get all the gas out, you'll still have gas bubbles. That's what hurts after surgery. I was fine walking around and moving my shoulders to get the gas bubbles out of my shoulders, but I had one spot right where the two incisions were, where my gall bladder used to be, that was so painful I couldn't breathe. I had to go back to the ER and get better pain medication, and a medicine to help with the gas! It hurt to breathe in so much I was crying, and I never cry. I hate crying. That was just more than I could handle.

Once that specific pain was gone, I felt so much better! Of course, when your stomach muscles are cut even a tiny bit you have some recovery time. However, it's been two weeks and here I am, able to put my own socks on again and able to do some housework! I even picked up one of my twins today, who weigh 41lbs each! My incisions are all healed except for my belly button, which is healing just not healed yet.

I have kept to a very low fat high fiber diet. It helps, seriously. I have been eating a lot of fresh and dried fruit, gluten free breads, gluten free (oat free!) granola (I like Bakery On Main) and I have been sprinkling ground flaxseed over my cereals in the morning. I have been sticking to poultry, and plan to reintroduce red meat next week. So far I haven't had any issues like so many others have told me about (vomiting, diarrhea, all that fun stuff). I'm very thankful to have such an awesome doctor, and thankful she told me how to care for myself after surgery :)