My early January appointment with GI3 rolled around and I got me some Phenergan. You have no idea how amazing it was to manage my nausea in a way that worked fairly well.
I haven't mentioned it before, but the nausea would be so bad sometimes I would make a little pallet on the floor by the toilet. I always carried ginger ale, a bottle of water, gum, crackers, Maalox, Emetrol, and a plastic bag (in case I actually vomited) in my purse.
GI3 wanted me to see my ENT to see if my nausea could be inner-ear related and GI3 scheduled me for an MRI to check my pituitary gland. All clear. (I also flipped the f out in the MRI machine, the first time I realized I was claustrophobic, and I couldn't handle hanging in there long enough to get the contrast dye, so it wasn't the best test ever.)
I wasn't that impressed with GI3, but if it meant I could manage my nausea better, I was going to play the game.
In mid-February, I caught another stomach bug. I hoped this would reverse my prior nausea and I was so desperate for an answer I made an appointment with GI3, only he wasn't in the office, and GI4 saw me. He told me to come back in a couple of weeks if the nausea hadn't gone away again.
Of course, I made another appointment with him.
GI4 has been amazing! He ran a lot of tests on me (another CT to check the status of my accessory spleen and to check for blockages and whatnot, HIDA scan for gall bladder, gastric emptying, and another endoscopy). This was all crazy expensive, but I didn't care. If I could get an answer for why I felt so badly, I was willing to pay for it. The only test that showed something of significance was the HIDA scan. Apparently, my accessory spleen caused me pain during the test.
Off to the surgeon I went and we scheduled my gall bladder surgery.
Y'all, this was the worst physical experience ever. Horrible gas pain (it's not in your intestines so you can't just burp or fart it out, your skin has to absorb the gas), horrible constipation, infected incisions (due to the wrong after care instructions), a HOLE in my ABDOMEN filled with WHITE GUNK (although, I will say it healed much more nicely, and less painfully, than the other infected incision that had mostly healed over already). Because I had an exploratory pelvic lap at the same time and my lovely OBGYN closed the surgery, my general surgeon "fixed" my incisions (by ripping out dissolvable stitches from skin that had grown over them) and told me to see my OBGYN for follow up.
What is it about that woman?
Well, I saw good, ol' OBGYN about a week later when the skin around my incision hole was so raw (from the peroxide) and the white gunk was still there. My blood pressure was a little high (not surprised) and my OBGYN dug out the gunk. Again, absolute excruciating pain that probably would not have been so bad with the help of some Lidocaine or something. I was to see my OBGYN weekly until the incision began to heal.
I also began having horrible diarrhea as a result of the antibiotics and not having a gall bladder.
Since my blood pressure was scarily high and I couldn't be too active (you know, with recovering from moderate abdominal surgery and having a hole in your abdomen and all), I resorted to ordering and watching the entire series of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Peaceful scenery and music, not too funny, mean, or suspenseful of a show. I was home bound because my car was also in the shop during all of this (and it's not like I could really go anywhere anyway), and I would lay in bed all day eating grapes, cheese, apples and crackers while I watched my Dr. Quinn.
And I decided to move to Auburn.
The rest of the year, health-wise, I dealt with real IBS, more widespread achiness and pain, and the nausea was not cured. On the bright side, I had begun to notice (in late 2008) my upper abdomen was very distended. After the surgery, my upper abs totally deflated, and that is the only positive change since I lost my gall bladder.
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