Recovering from laparoscopic gall bladder removal

[quarridors]

Just to update those in the know but who don't follow me on Twitter:

 

I had laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery to remove my gall bladder on Tuesday. It had multiple gallstones and scarring and had caused me a few painful attacks in the past and was possibly the cause of some of my longterm digestive problems, so it made sense to have it removed. It wasn't emergency surgery, I'd had several weeks notice. The advice was that it was better to have it removed before it became an emergency and that most people can eat normally afterwards.

 

It was meant to be day surgery but my blood pressure was refusing to go over 90 and I was in a very wobbly state so I got admitted to a hospital ward for observation for an extra 24 hours. They put me in a private side room with en suite so I didn't have to worry about the stress of single sex wards.

 

By midnight after my surgery my blood pressure made it back over 100 and by 4am they were happy that I was consistently out of the danger zone. I got discharged at 11:30am and was home by an hour later.

 

My mum's been looking after me during recovery. She went home yesterday evening having made sure I'm stable enough to look after myself now. She's set me up with lots of portions of food to eat and made sure that I shouldn't need to do any heavy lifting or carrying. My parents are likely visiting on Monday to do more shopping and cooking and deal with anything that requires lifting or bending down.

 

Pain has mostly been referred pain in my shoulders and neck, this is apparently caused by gas pumped into my abdomen for laparoscopy. Pressure against the diaphragm apparently causes referred pain in the shoulders. As of this morning that pain seems to have gone. My 4 small wound sites are more of an achey or bruised pain. I haven't taken anything stronger than supermarket painkillers. There's no redness or sharp pain there, so that's a good sign that I've avoided infection. The worst pain I have now is if I cough or laugh; anything that strains my stomach muscles.

 

Yesterday I managed to stand up and raise my arms long enough to have a full shower (with the waterproof dressings still on the wounds), dry and dress myself afterwards. Although I felt pretty exhausted and a little like I'd been winded afterwards.

 

I'm meant to be signed off work for 2 weeks but as I work from home sat at a desk, I'm allowed to start doing 'phased return' after a week. I think I'll need this because I'm already quite bored of doing very little all day. But also I'd spending the majority of my afternoons asleep so I won't be full time.

 

My dressings are supposed to come off at lunch time today. Being open to the air is good for healing. If I have any problems, I have a second set of dressings. I think, other than the hypotension on day one, everything's been going well. I have a surprisingly large number of friends who've had the surgery so I had a good idea of what to expect and what life's like afterwards.

Comments

[pbristow]

One week on... How are things going?