Slow Recovery with Random Thoughts...

The road to recovery has not been easy! I am feeling a little better, but am stuck on what to eat. I have slowly been testing food to see how my stomach reacts to it. This is horrible. I used to love food, and was passionate about it. As of last week I don't have an appetite and am having a hard to eating. Eating is a chore to me and nothing sounds good. In order to maintain some type of energy I have to force myself to eat. One of the thing I have discovered that eating bacon causes pain and nausea for me now.

I have been reading many article on some websites about the effects of having a gallbladder removed. Some of the things have really scared me. I am hopeful that this is just a phase, and soon I will be able to eat some food that I really do like. I am sick and tired of soups, especially since I have been told by my doctor that Tomato soup cannot be part of my diet. I love tomato soup, so this really sucks! It would of been helpful to get a list of things I could and couldn't eat. Many of the articles didn't really help my search for things I can eat.

It has almost been a week since I have been home from the hospital and have stayed out. My husband has really been there for me with all my mood swings, crying, and instabilities. It is amazing how much he has been there for me. I am so grateful for his sense of humor! It has helped me keep from down spiraling into depression.

Thanks for all the love and support. Many of you guys came to visit, and that truly lifted my spirits! I love all the phone calls and get well wishes. Muah to all of you!!!!

In random news, I am 3-0 in our family Fantasy Football League. Mike is a little upset when I beat him. Its all good, go team Bowerbank. LOL! Hopefully I can catch up to Papa BBank, but there is a big chance he will take me down.

I Love Hospitals. Not!!!

Once again, I am back in the hospital. This is the third Wednesday in a row I have been to the ER. Monday morning I had been feeling a little sick, and by Monday night I was in pain. After a phone call with my surgeon, he wanted me to go into his office Tuesday morning. Mike drove me to the appointment, and we both waited a long time before I was called in. He took a quick look at me and said that it seemed I was healing just fine from the surgery, and he couldn't understand why I was in pain. He sent me to go get some blood work done just in case. I was put back on a clear liquid diet. Wednesday morning the doc said that the results from the blood test looked abnormal, and I need to talk to my GI doctor as soon as I could. My GI doc said that once again my liver levels were high, so he told me to go to the ER and get a CT scan of my abdomen done. Little did I know, it would be the cause that has kept me here.





I got a ERCP procedure done in order to see if there was a loose gall stone in my system that was causing the pain as well as my liver levels to increase. There is risk that 5-10% of people who undergo ERCP can get pancreatitis . Acute pancreatitis usually begins with pain in the upper abdomen that may last for a few days. The pain may be severe and may become constant—just in the abdomen—or it may reach to the back and other areas. It may be sudden and intense or begin as a mild pain that gets worse when food is eaten. Someone with acute pancreatitis often looks and feels very sick. After my ERCP procedure I immediately felt fine, and I thought all of this would soon be behind me. At around 10 pm Thursday, I began to feel some pain in my abdomen, but nothing too major. They gave me pain killers and it put me to sleep. I woke up at 5 am crying with pain. Apparently i am in that 5-10% of people. Because of this pancreatitis , i will be here in the hospital till Monday, at the earliest.





One of the major downsides of having pancreatitis is that the earliest I will get any type of food, even clear liquids will probably be Monday.





Updates:


Janie- other than spending most of the month of September in the hospital, I have had to drop two classes. If I can get out of here by Monday night, I can hopefully salvage my two Tuesday classes, if not, then I will have to drop them as well. I did get invited to join the Honors program at school this semester! I was so thrilled to get the letter in the mail. I have a new calling in church, I am in the compassionate service committee. My job is to make sure that the sisters in our ward who are having a baby get some dinners made by others. I really like this calling.

Mike's Baseball Game

Mike-
He has been such a wonderful husband, taking good care of his wife. On Monday he hit a home run in his baseball game. He is still going to therapy for a strain on his hip. Fantasy Football has began, and he is having fun with that. Every year the Bowerbank family has their own Fantasy Football League. The following picture is of last year's winner(Dad), second place (me), and third place (Jeff).

Surgical Procedures!

After about 48 hours of wait, I finally had Laparoscopic cholecystectomy . The procedure went flawless. When I finally came to in the recovery room I was having some trouble breathing. Oh and the pain can be described as follows: Imagine not working out for about a year, and then one day you decide that you want to firm up your abdomen, and because you have a trip to the beach coming up, you decide to do 1000 + sit- ups. The next day you feel sore, but on that third day the pain accompanies the soreness. That pretty much sums up how much pain I'm in. It's 12:45 am (Saturday morning) and I am wide awake. Ugh.

Overall I feel pretty blessed that with some pain killers I am just fine. Thanks to all for your support, phone calls, and awesome magazines I have received. I couldn't have made it through without the US weekly, Vogue, Elle, and Star magazines. Muah! It made all the waiting time go by fast.

These are some pretty pictures Mike took during our

road trip. I thought they were wonderful, so

I touched them up.

Complications

He would!

So as bored as I have been for the last 24 hours, I felt I might as well do something so I do Not go crazy. Let me begin a week ago:

After work Wednesday early afternoon I was sitting down watching TV (a Spanish soap), when all of a sudden I thought I was having a heart attack. I stupidly drove myself to the hospital. They rushed me in and after hours sent me home. Their conclusion was that it had to do with acid reflex. I took medication and pain relievers for the rest of the week. On Friday I went to my gastric- doc to see what was going on with me. He noticed that I had some abnormal liver levels which concerned him, and that he wasn't 100% sure that the reason I had ended up in the ER was due to acid reflex. He asked me to get some Liver Function Testing as well as abdominal ultrasound done this next month, and to go back and see him in October.

Yesterday as I was in my Chemistry Lab class i started to feel pressure in my chest. I took off and went home to take Maalox and tums. After a while the pressure and pain was still there so I took some vicodine. After about 2 hours the pain subsided but the pressure was still there. I decided to call my visiting teacher Maren to see if she could take me to the hospital. She was able to drop me off before she went to class. They started to treat me the same way as they did last time. When the nurse came I explained that I had been here last Wednesday for the exact same thing. The nurse asked if I had seen my doctor, and I told her I had; as well, explained to her what he had asked for me to get done. They went ahead and did the tests on me.

The Results of the tests:

I sit here waiting to get my gallbladder out. I have gallstones and it is affecting my liver. As of now, they plan to put me under the knife tomorrow(Friday) sometime. I am content that I have a laptop with internet access! All this waiting is driving me insane of the membrane.

P.S. Mike just walked in with some beautiful flowers! What a sweetheart!