Pain! It’s been a week!!

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(This was written for my records... feel free not to read!) 

Pain is an interesting yet inexplicable “thing”. 

It is also something no one likes to hear about or read about and yet I want to write about in order not to forget. It was awful- so awful that it seems impossible to imagine that I could forget! 

It started last week Saturday with a lengthy gallbladder attack - nasty but not worthy of a trip to the ER but the hubby was ready to override me!  This continued daily - I woke up feeling great but every morning I had another attack.  They were getting longer and more intense and I had decided that if I had another I was going to the ER.  So Thursday morning, after calling the doc’s office during the attack Arie drove me to Blodgett hospital. These were lengthy attacks but wouldn’t you know it?  This one was intense but was over before we got to the hospital. Crazy! 

The ER experience is intense but no surprises- lots of people coming by, lots of noise and lots of waiting. I was finally admitted to the hospital in the late afternoon.  Thursday night at 9:00 I had a MRI - new experience . It was loud but not as claustrophobic as I thought it might be. I had gall stones and the CBD was twice the size it would be normally but no other issues.  The next afternoon I was scheduled for a scope procedure -esophagogastroduodenoscopy!  How's that for a name of a procedure?? 

The evening after the scope that following afternoon I had another attack-of course right at the shift change.  It took a lot of time and a lot of meds-dilaudid finally took the edge off!  This was the worst and longest attack ever! I can't put the pain experience into words but the relief when it's gone is euphoric!

Saturday morning at 8:00 the gallbladder came out laparoscopically. Four small incisions. End of story??  Not quite.

Drugs are good and bad and all different.  Oxycodone, that opioid that supposedly everyone wants and gets addicted to, does not work for nerve pain. It would be just my luck to have a nerve that was effected by the surgery- nicked or something- which flared and roared. Gabapentin was prescribed and over the course of the week the nerve has responded well. 

 It's Friday and I finally am pain free (and drug free).  What a ride!!

Modern medicine has come a very long way in the last 20 years and for that I am thankful! Praising God for His healing grace!

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