The Gallbladder
Friday 23 August 2019
12.30am
My stomach is killing me. I don't know what I did to deserve these kinds of stomach cramps but I just want them to fuck off. It feels like my insides are starting to dissolve. I didn't eat anything heavy or greasy. Applesauce wouldn't do this to me. I hate when these stomach attacks hit me. The pain is so unreal I just want to die. They get worse every year. The one I had the other week was almost as bad as this. Hopefully, it goes away so I can fucking sleep.
3.02am
I've been tossing and turning for hours unable to sleep. I'm hot. Then I'm cold. I'm so nauseous I can barely focus. The pain is white-hot and spreading. It's gone up into my sternum, into my liver and is wrapping around so that my entire backaches. This isn't a stomach cramp. It's something else. I can't go to the hospital now it will be full of assholes. I don't want to go alone. No, I can wait it will get better. He'll be up in a few hours anyway. Makes no sense to bother him now.
4.15am
The nausea is overwhelming. It feels like I'm going to spew everything. I can't get up fast enough to make it to the toilet; I'm in too much pain. I go to stand up and vomit all over the carpet. Pure liquid. It feels like I'm going to choke on it. I cough once and more vomit pours out of me. It splashes all over the carpet and the lower part of my duvet. I'm cold. I lay on my side in case I need to vomit again, despite the pain. I know if I lay on my back there's a risk I won't be able to get back up if/when I need to vomit and I could either inhale it or choke on it. Need to wait. See if someone can come with me I don't wanna go alone. I always go on my own. My insides feel like they are melting.
5.30am
I can't take it anymore. The pain feels like it's cracking my back and sternum. It's radiating through me and my side is kinda swollen. It's too high up to be my appendix. It's gotta be my gallbladder or pancreas. My mate can't take me to I make it there on my own, inching slowly into the emergency room. They take me right away, seeing that I'm in agony. It hurts to breathe. I'm taking slow shallow breaths. The nurse takes me in and gets vitals, asking me all the routine questions. She tells me that my temperature is elevated and my blood pressure is low. I inform her that my temperature is only a little high for my normal and I always have low blood pressure. I get onto a gurney and they tell me they need to do blood work immediately and ask if I can give them a urine sample. I inform her that I've not really had anything to drink since midnight and I had two episodes of pure liquid vomiting only a little while before. The nurse struggles to find a vein I'm that dehydrated. They manage to draw out what they need and hurry away. They hook me up to an IV and pump me full of fluids and pain meds. I relax a little bit as the pain meds wash over me. It's a low enough dose where I'm relaxed, not foggy or high. In the back of my mind, I worry that I will slip and go back into my old ways of playing with morphine and riding that high in my room with Ghost on top volume. I can't think about that now. I've not even been in a half hour when a tech comes out and wheels me away to have an ultrasound. She's sexy and I'm finding it hard to listen to what she's saying. The jist is that they want to have a look and see what's going on right away and this is the quickest. I'm tired so I begin to slip away during the ultrasound. She works around, checking my pancreas, liver, gallbladder and kidneys. She asks me how my pain is now that I've had something for it and I tell her that I'm an Elton John level of fab. She smiles and wheels me back to the emergency room letting me know the doctor will look at the results and we'll have some answers in a few minutes.
LATER
I knew I should have been terrified about what the doctors were saying to me, but it all just washed over me. I was numb. I fully understood what was being said to me as they told me my gallbladder was packed with stones, my bile ducts were dilated and it was about to rupture. I needed to have surgery right away. I'm told my white count is up, but nothing too serious, my body is fighting everything going on. I was wheeled upstairs and given a sponge bath while they went over the aspects of anaesthesia and the finer details of the procedure. When the surgeon came in to discuss the risks and possible things that could happen that were a little more serious, such as damage to my pancreas or liver during the surgery, I just nodded. I told him he had my full consent to do what he needed to do; don't waste time asking for other consent by waking me up, just do it. He nodded, signed off on his documents after marking my belly and left me with the anesthesiologist. She was a cute little Asian woman with a friendly face and a wide smile.
Laying there before surgery I felt nothing. I wasn't scared. I wasn't worried. I was just tired. Tired from not sleeping. Tired of being in pain. Tired of depression. Tired of fighting with myself. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live. If something were to happen in surgery, I doubt I would have cared. I think a large part of me was hoping this would just be the end of everything. She told me that I would feel groggy when I woke up, explained the breathing tube they were about to put down my throat and the risks with that since I have a few oral piercings that don't really come out and we couldn't get them out. I told her I wasn't worried, do what she needed to do. I don't think she even suspected that I was hoping I would just die, as she patted me on the arm and told me that I'm pretty tough. I mean, I am, but with something like this, most people would be worried. She put a syringe into the port on my IV and I watched the contents go down and then I was out. It wasn't the meds. It was my pure fatigue.
I wake up almost an hour after the surgery finished. I was exhausted. I wake up and the sterile white of the recovery bay meets me. I'm all alone. I think for a second, maybe I've died. I can't feel anything. A nurse walks in and tells me that everything went fine, they just decided to let me sleep. Apparently, I woke up before and went back to sleep. They remove me from the monitors, informing me all my vitals are fine, but still blood pressure was running a bit low. They told me to keep an eye on it and not be alone for the next 24 hours following surgery. They give me prescriptions and tell me that I'm free to leave, but if I spike a high fever, get nauseous or can't stop vomiting to come back in right away. All I want to do is go back to sleep. I want to be alone. The day has really put things into perspective for me. A perspective of something that I really didn't want to think about or deal with.
I get home and crawl into bed. I'm not in any more pain. I feel nothing. I can feel my body, just no pain. My abdomen is a bit sore, like when you've done a few too many crunches but other than that, I'm fine. All I want to do is sleep. It feels like a week or more has passed. I'm not supposed to be alone, but I am. It's better off this way. If I die, I die. People already know what to do.
12.30am
My stomach is killing me. I don't know what I did to deserve these kinds of stomach cramps but I just want them to fuck off. It feels like my insides are starting to dissolve. I didn't eat anything heavy or greasy. Applesauce wouldn't do this to me. I hate when these stomach attacks hit me. The pain is so unreal I just want to die. They get worse every year. The one I had the other week was almost as bad as this. Hopefully, it goes away so I can fucking sleep.
3.02am
I've been tossing and turning for hours unable to sleep. I'm hot. Then I'm cold. I'm so nauseous I can barely focus. The pain is white-hot and spreading. It's gone up into my sternum, into my liver and is wrapping around so that my entire backaches. This isn't a stomach cramp. It's something else. I can't go to the hospital now it will be full of assholes. I don't want to go alone. No, I can wait it will get better. He'll be up in a few hours anyway. Makes no sense to bother him now.
4.15am
The nausea is overwhelming. It feels like I'm going to spew everything. I can't get up fast enough to make it to the toilet; I'm in too much pain. I go to stand up and vomit all over the carpet. Pure liquid. It feels like I'm going to choke on it. I cough once and more vomit pours out of me. It splashes all over the carpet and the lower part of my duvet. I'm cold. I lay on my side in case I need to vomit again, despite the pain. I know if I lay on my back there's a risk I won't be able to get back up if/when I need to vomit and I could either inhale it or choke on it. Need to wait. See if someone can come with me I don't wanna go alone. I always go on my own. My insides feel like they are melting.
5.30am
I can't take it anymore. The pain feels like it's cracking my back and sternum. It's radiating through me and my side is kinda swollen. It's too high up to be my appendix. It's gotta be my gallbladder or pancreas. My mate can't take me to I make it there on my own, inching slowly into the emergency room. They take me right away, seeing that I'm in agony. It hurts to breathe. I'm taking slow shallow breaths. The nurse takes me in and gets vitals, asking me all the routine questions. She tells me that my temperature is elevated and my blood pressure is low. I inform her that my temperature is only a little high for my normal and I always have low blood pressure. I get onto a gurney and they tell me they need to do blood work immediately and ask if I can give them a urine sample. I inform her that I've not really had anything to drink since midnight and I had two episodes of pure liquid vomiting only a little while before. The nurse struggles to find a vein I'm that dehydrated. They manage to draw out what they need and hurry away. They hook me up to an IV and pump me full of fluids and pain meds. I relax a little bit as the pain meds wash over me. It's a low enough dose where I'm relaxed, not foggy or high. In the back of my mind, I worry that I will slip and go back into my old ways of playing with morphine and riding that high in my room with Ghost on top volume. I can't think about that now. I've not even been in a half hour when a tech comes out and wheels me away to have an ultrasound. She's sexy and I'm finding it hard to listen to what she's saying. The jist is that they want to have a look and see what's going on right away and this is the quickest. I'm tired so I begin to slip away during the ultrasound. She works around, checking my pancreas, liver, gallbladder and kidneys. She asks me how my pain is now that I've had something for it and I tell her that I'm an Elton John level of fab. She smiles and wheels me back to the emergency room letting me know the doctor will look at the results and we'll have some answers in a few minutes.
LATER
I knew I should have been terrified about what the doctors were saying to me, but it all just washed over me. I was numb. I fully understood what was being said to me as they told me my gallbladder was packed with stones, my bile ducts were dilated and it was about to rupture. I needed to have surgery right away. I'm told my white count is up, but nothing too serious, my body is fighting everything going on. I was wheeled upstairs and given a sponge bath while they went over the aspects of anaesthesia and the finer details of the procedure. When the surgeon came in to discuss the risks and possible things that could happen that were a little more serious, such as damage to my pancreas or liver during the surgery, I just nodded. I told him he had my full consent to do what he needed to do; don't waste time asking for other consent by waking me up, just do it. He nodded, signed off on his documents after marking my belly and left me with the anesthesiologist. She was a cute little Asian woman with a friendly face and a wide smile.
Laying there before surgery I felt nothing. I wasn't scared. I wasn't worried. I was just tired. Tired from not sleeping. Tired of being in pain. Tired of depression. Tired of fighting with myself. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live. If something were to happen in surgery, I doubt I would have cared. I think a large part of me was hoping this would just be the end of everything. She told me that I would feel groggy when I woke up, explained the breathing tube they were about to put down my throat and the risks with that since I have a few oral piercings that don't really come out and we couldn't get them out. I told her I wasn't worried, do what she needed to do. I don't think she even suspected that I was hoping I would just die, as she patted me on the arm and told me that I'm pretty tough. I mean, I am, but with something like this, most people would be worried. She put a syringe into the port on my IV and I watched the contents go down and then I was out. It wasn't the meds. It was my pure fatigue.
I wake up almost an hour after the surgery finished. I was exhausted. I wake up and the sterile white of the recovery bay meets me. I'm all alone. I think for a second, maybe I've died. I can't feel anything. A nurse walks in and tells me that everything went fine, they just decided to let me sleep. Apparently, I woke up before and went back to sleep. They remove me from the monitors, informing me all my vitals are fine, but still blood pressure was running a bit low. They told me to keep an eye on it and not be alone for the next 24 hours following surgery. They give me prescriptions and tell me that I'm free to leave, but if I spike a high fever, get nauseous or can't stop vomiting to come back in right away. All I want to do is go back to sleep. I want to be alone. The day has really put things into perspective for me. A perspective of something that I really didn't want to think about or deal with.
I get home and crawl into bed. I'm not in any more pain. I feel nothing. I can feel my body, just no pain. My abdomen is a bit sore, like when you've done a few too many crunches but other than that, I'm fine. All I want to do is sleep. It feels like a week or more has passed. I'm not supposed to be alone, but I am. It's better off this way. If I die, I die. People already know what to do.
It's a bit surreal really. I'm sitting here with an organ missing. A part of me is gone. It's hard to process. I can't believe it happened. I don't know what to think about all that's happened. I don't know if I want to think about what happened. A lot of things were put into perspective for me and now I just have to think about what it means for me and for the future of everything.
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