Today marks 3 weeks to the day when I walked into to the ER in Lecco, and 2 weeks to the day since having surgery done to remove my gallbladder. What an ordeal. If only I had known what gallbladder pain felt like long before this all happened, perhaps I would’ve noticed the signs and made a visit to my GP earlier. The sudden discomfort in my upper right abdomen, just below the rib, after eating a heavy meal. Indigestion? Gas? Eyes too big for my stomach? And when the soreness went away, usually within a matter of hours, my thinking was if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Long story short, there was inflammation in my gallbladder, I had gallstones, and I needed to have laparoscopic surgery. Four incisions in my abdomen, remove the offending organ, and that’s it. But not before also having a pre-op endoscopy so they could have a good look-see to rule out tumors in my liver or stones in my pancreas. Neither endoscopy or cholecystectomy could be done until the inflammation was completely gone, so I got hooked up with an IV and wheeled away to my room to rest until I was given the go ahead.
Ten days in a 5-star hotel hospital
My enraged gallbladder must’ve had some sort of bone to pick with me as it took 4 days until the inflammation was gone. During this period I was on a very lite diet, mainly tea and dry toast for breakfast; potato puree, tiny pasta in clear broth (pastina), breadsticks (grissini), and apple puree (or baked apple) for lunch and dinner. Never mind that there is prosciutto cotto (ham) written on my meal description. This ticket was from after surgery. When an item was not there, they put a big red X over it. The weird thing is that I never felt very hungry because the IV was enough. As much as I dislike throwing food away, my appetite had shrunk to less than a bird’s.
On the 5th day a doctor came in and deemed me fit for the endoscopy. But there’s a catch. There was a line of patients waiting for the very same procedure and because I was rated as not-so-urgent, I had to wait. I think this was the hardest part – the waiting. There was free wifi at the hospital and I had my tablet to read books and watch Netflix. Down the hall, a visiting room with tv was available to all patients. Visiting hours were from 12 noon to 1pm, and 6pm to 7pm. Most everyone stayed in their rooms though. I didn’t realize that the hospital floor can be such a noisy place when the nurses and orderlies go about their duties. It was only disquieting at night, when out of the silence I’d hear someone loudly cry out in pain. I tried avoiding naps in order to fall into a deep sleep at bedtime.
In the end, around 3:30 in the afternoon on November 29th, the doctor comes in and tells me that I’m getting the endoscopy. Now. There was just enough time to send a message to MotH before they rolled me out of the room.
To be continued…
Rubber Slippers In Italy 