Post-surgery update

I deliberately waited until after my follow-up visit to the surgeon to update the blog. Yes, I said surgeon. On Friday, April 25, I had my gallbladder removed. It was done with laproscopic surgery, which means it was outpatient surgery; I had 4 very small incisions to accommodate the instruments and a very quick recovery time compared with the more traditional surgery. The whole process of being admitted 1 1/2 hours before surgery time (which ended up starting an hour late) to coming out of the anesthetic took about 6 hours. Becky was my "babysitter." She took me to the hospital, waited, brought me home, stayed with me up until 24 hours past surgery time. I had no reaction to the anesthetic, very little pain afterwards, and by Thursday of last week I was out mowing already (even though neighbor Bill Morgan pestered me about doing that). The days in between the surgery and resuming normal activity I spent mostly in the recliner (shades of Ed around this time last year--that weighed on my mind heavily). From right after surgery, I began to eat normally and I have not had any problems with that. So overall, even though I had high anxiety beforehand, the surgery went very well, and the surgeon didn't even yell at me at the follow-up appointment for driving and doing things sooner than the discharge instructions said I should. I'm still not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds for another 4 weeks or so, but that's to prevent the possibility of a hernia developing in the area of the "poke hole" at my belly button. I can't do my morning stretches and crunches yet either, but I am supposed to get back to walking every day. I confess that so far, my walking has mainly been behind the lawn mower.

My last support group meeting was the Wednesday before the surgery. I along with about 10 others from my group of new friends have decided to "graduate." However, we also want to continue getting together as friends and have already laid the groundwork for doing that on a regular basis. Sixteen of us had a pot luck and lots of laughs and conversation last evening. We'll do it again next week, and next Saturday we'll spend the day at one friend's horse farm. I'm counting on this to continue because I have come to really cherish these people. It's a lot like the closeness Ed and I felt with our Lakewood/Norwalk/Iowa friends--they're more like family, very caring and ready to help each other if needed. In fact, one friend brought me supper on Sunday after my surgery, and numerous others offered to be with me for and after the surgery and to drive me around until I could drive. Our support group counselors reminded us that we can come back to the large group anytime for "booster shots." It's comforting to know that option is always there. Now, if I could just figure out how to stay asleep through the night, I wouldn't be up writing in the blog in the wee hours!