Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted to the blog. This is going to be a long post, and it's actually a duplicate post from one of my other blogs, but once you get into it, you'll understand why.

Here's the story:

Three weeks ago, I had a small abdominal pain as I was going to sleep Monday night. I remember the night clearly, as it was the night the Astros should have won the NLDS but instead had a massive 9th inning meltdown that let the Cardinals force a game 5. Anyway, the pain started about 9:30 that night, and never went away. Instead, it got more and more intense, so at 3:30am, when I could no longer stand it, I woke my wife and had her take me to the ER. A few hours and blood tests later, they diagnosed pancreatitis. I was admitted for a 23-hour observation where I was kept on IV fluids and painkillers, and couldn't eat. I also had a sonogram done, which showed that I was not pregnant but did have some "interesting" stuff around my gall bladder. Apparently, it wasn't enough to justify a CAT scan at that point, but it was determined that if the pain didn't subside or if my blood work didn’t improve, I'd get the scan to see what else was wrong.

A day and a half later, I was released because the pain went away and my blood work improved. Two days of liquid diet later, I started eating "real" food again, but was advised to avoid really fatty foods for a while, in case there was a problem with the gall bladder.

Now I've tried to blame this on my brother, but it really comes back on to me. I went to a Halloween party at my brother's place last Friday night, and even though we ate dinner before we went, I had a slice of pizza while at the party. Oh boy.

So, at 3:30am Saturday morning, the pancreas woke me up again. This time I knew exactly what it was, and didn't wait around to see if it would "go away". I had my wife take me back to the ER, and started the process again. This time, I got a CAT scan immediately (that entire process was less than 15 minutes from the time the gurney wheels were unlocked in the ER until I got back into the room - wow) and it clearly showed gallstones causing blockage. The diagnosis was easy - the gall bladder had to come out, and right then.

That's when the story stops going smoothly. Apparently "right then" to the ER physicians doesn't mean "right then" to the surgical staff. For several hours, we went round and round with the hospital about when the surgery would be performed (after they admitted me, mind you), before they finally agreed to release me and deal with scheduling the surgery later in the week. Then about 5 minutes later, I got word that I'd be going under at 7am on Sunday morning. That should have clued me in to what was going to happen for the rest of the process.

I finally met with the surgeon around 8:30pm Saturday night, and he explained the process and said they'd be by to pick me up at 6:45 the next morning. 6:45 came and went. 7:00 came and went. 7:30 came and went. Finally, about 8:00, they put me on a surgical gurney and wheeled me downstairs to the OR. Which was getting a semi-annual inventory of equipment. So I chatted with one of the OR nurses for about 45 minutes, and they wheeled me into the OR proper. The anesthesiologist was a cool guy, and we started having this great conversation, then nothing.

The next thing I remember, and fortunately I only remember it very hazily now, is screaming in pain. Yes, screaming. Not complaining, not writhing, screaming. And I remember it took a long time before that vague memory faded into me coming to back in my hospital room. No pain, but very hazy and very drugged. My liquid diet breakfast was already on the tray over my bed, and I was starving, so I wolfed that down (it's amazing how good chicken broth can taste and how much you look forward to another serving of the stuff) with no hesitation. As advised by everyone in my family, I go up to walk as soon as I could, and after the obligatory trip to the bathroom, I think I made a trip to the door before heading back to bed.

The rest of Sunday went smoothly, with one exception. Around 9pm, my IV infused, and because I was doing so well with pain management, I asked them not to put it back in (I absolutely abhor getting an IV - that's the worst part of the entire experience for me, bar none). Instead, I took oral pain meds and went off to sleep. Earlier in the evening, the surgeon cleared me for release, but I opted to stay the night just in case. I'd rather be in the hospital if I had complications.

At 1:30 the nightmare started. Not a dream, but the real-world incarnation of one. I got up to hit the bathroom again (IV fluids will do that to you, as will a liquid diet), and I could barely walk. By the time I got back into the bed, I had already run for the nurse to bring pain meds, and I was remembering again the screaming in pain episode that immediately followed the surgery and prayed I was not in for another round of that. Over the next 5 hours, we tried a variety of oral meds and finally got a nurse in to try and start an IV to get a dose of Morphine. Unfortunately, that started the vomiting (which felt really good on the surgically-altered abdominal muscles), and when they tried to push in some anti-nausea medicine, that IV caused the vessel to burst. For the next 30 minutes, another nurse tried six different times to get an IV started and my vessels burst on every attempt, so I finally said "Enough!" and put the IV trip to rest.

After a consult with the surgeon, I got a "regular" shot of a pain reliever and some more orals, and after a bit, the pain finally subsided to a tolerable level. I was able to get out of bed and move around with only minor difficulty, but kept at it to make sure I could keep my system going. The rest of the day Monday was pretty much the same - not much pain (more of a really strong ache) that worsened around time for more meds, but got better pretty quickly. At the end of the day, we again had the option of checking out, and this time I accepted the release. I could give myself pain meds on a more regular schedule than the floor nurses, and since I had no IV and could get no more IV meds, there really wasn't much point. So I came home and for the next 18 hours did the routine of waking up every four hours to take pain meds and handle other bodily functions, then go back to sleep.

We had been monitoring my temperature every time I took my meds because I had been running a low-grade fever since the operation. I'd had an earlier scare where my temperature jumped to 101.3 degrees during the day on Monday, but that only lasted a couple of hours, and eventually went back down to the 99.7 level and fluctuated within a half a degree of that point the remainder of my hospital stay. When we checked my temp at 11 Tuesday morning, however, it had jumped to over 102. Granted, I had been wearing sweats in bed under several blankets, but we were concerned nonetheless. I took a tepid shower and a dose of Tylenol, and within a few hours, the temperature subsided. I never got chills, so I wasn't too worried about it, but we called my physician and he prescribed an oral antibiotic in case I was developing a lung infection from the anesthesia.

Tuesday afternoon, I started getting up and around, just because I was tired of staying in bed. So we went upstairs (which was less painful than I expected and, had I known that, would have done so sooner) and started getting caught up on our backlog of recorded TV. A one point we went for a walk down the block (only about four houses in each direction actually), but the weather was really nice, and it felt good to get outside again.

I turned in around 9pm and went straight to sleep. And straight into nightmares. I knew I was dreaming, but the dream was so vivid and real that at one point I thought I had managed to wake myself, but found that I couldn't move my arms. I tried to call for help, but couldn't speak. Then the nightmare world enveloped me again, until I found myself getting grilled about commitments I hadn't remembered making to any deity and had definitely not kept, and the realization that I was dead (or dying) and was being grilled about my entrance into heaven was not going well at all, and I started trying to thrash around to hopefully wake up my wife who would hopefully wake me up in turn, but to no avail. I had lost my connection with the real world and was in this very different reality of what my afterlife would look like when my PDA sounded the new e-mail alert notification, which was enough to wake me up fully.

I had never been so glad to hear that e-mail beep in my life. And never have I been so terrified about trying to go back to sleep, either. At that point, I swore off the narcotic-based pain relievers and switched over to a combination of Tylenol and Advil to manage the pain. I finally went back to sleep, and only had mildly weird dreams the rest of the night.

Wednesday was a setback because of the change in pain meds. Tylenol and Advil are candy compared to what I had been taking, so I was back to dealing with pretty severe pain around the time to take the pills again, so instead of trying to take care of all tasks around the time to take the pills, I modified my schedule to hit the loo about midway through the 4-hour pain pill cycle and managed to finally get somewhat comfortable in that pattern.

Today was the first day that I really began feeling close to human again since the second ER trip. I'm sticking to my four-hour schedule of Tylenol and Advil, and I've made sure I got up to walk around the house and the front yard about midway through the cycle of pain meds. I’ve been able to sit in my office chair for an hour or so at a time, and many of my clients began to realize I was back in "action" and I fielded a few support calls. I got caught up on billing, and started getting caught up on e-mail. I quickly decided I'd never wade through the stuff in the SBS newsgroup, so if there is something interesting in there, hopefully someone will point it out to me.

But I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel. I slept better last night than the night before, and I expect the same from tonight. My abdominal aches are minimizing, and I'm starting to eat solid foods again (saltines, how I love thee). And knowing that much of the abdominal discomfort I've been dealing with for probably a year or more was directly related to the gall stones the found (and removed), I'm looking forward to feeling much better physically in the next month or so as I build my stamina back. I know I won't have the type of pain I dealt with during the recovery again, and my mobility and flexibility are improving by the hour.

There is one last item of regret, however, through all of this. In the 14+ days that I have either not eaten or been on a liquid diet, I have not shed a single, solitary pound. So if you're thinking that pancreatitis and gall bladder surgery might make an effective weight-loss plan, think again.

And whoever first said "No pain, no gain" should be drawn and quartered.