Monday, December 31, 2012

Princess 2's Surgery Blessing

I wanted to share with you the blessings about Princess 2's surgery. I shared with you how we figure out what we thought it was. We called the surgeon and got an appointment. While there, we explained all the problems and how everything pointed to her gallbladder and also how my niece had the same diagnosis as Princess two and how all her tests came back normal but when she had her gallbladder out, it was not healthy.

The surgeon said it was really up to her if she wanted it out. She prayed and pondered about it and decided that it was really what she wanted.

He said he would take it out and wanted to schedule her surgery for the next week. I explained that I would be out of the country and I didn't want her to get it out while I wasn't around but if we waited, she would be near the end of her health insurance. I asked if there were any way she could have the surgery the next day.

He said he thought that would be impossible but he would have his secretary contact the insurance and see if they could get approval that quickly and then he would have her contact the hospital and see if they could fit her in.

Within 20 minutes or so, she was scheduled for noonish the next day. We went to the hospital and per-registered her so that the next day would go smoothly.

The next morning, I got a call at 7 a.m. that they had a cancellation and we needed to come in right away. I got princess up and we went over. We stayed up late the night before thinking we could sleep in because she couldn't eat before surgery. We went to the hospital and it was about an hour before she went in for surgery.

I went home and did a few things and then went back. She had horrible pain coming out of surgery so they gave her extra IV meds and that caused her to have a horrible time waking up and she had horrible nausea and couldn't eat or keep anything down due to nausea.

The surgeon told us before surgery that most people that have problems with their gallbladder have healthy looking pink gallbladders when he takes them out and that would probably be the situation with her. Right after surgery, he came and talked to me and told me that her gallbladder was damaged and it needed to come out. My friend is an OR nurse and told me that they were shocked when it came out not looking healthy in someone so young.

The Dr. said the stars must have aligned for us to be able to have the surgery work out so quickly and then he also told me that her appendix isn't in the normal spot. I thought that was interesting news.

She took hours to get better and should have been home around noon. She finally felt better after getting some anti-nausea meds and eating something and went home after dinner.

It was such a blessing that she went to surgery earlier as she would have been in the hospital overnight if the surgery was later in the day. That would have been Thanksgiving day. I was able to help her through two days of recovery and I shared before about how the one call I made during my trip to Czech Republic was one day when she was sick and had run out of the nausea medication. I was so grateful that after my call she was able to get more medication and some dear neighbors got her prescription and others brought over food etc.

The entire thing was such a blessing. We are SO grateful for the insurance and her surgery and her great recuperation. Thanks to all of you who prayed for her at any point along the way. I have seen enough miracles in all of this to know that your prayers helped us in the diagnosis.

Since her surgery, we have shared with at least four people who are now getting medical help for the same situations in their lives. I am surprised how common gall bladder issues are. We also took over a thank you note to the person who shared with us about the right shoulder pain being a gallbladder symptom.

We are so blessed.

No comments:

Post a Comment