September 2021 was rough. Maybe not quite as rough as March 2021 when it came to the medical emergency, but still rough. And depending who’s opinion you ask, I sort of almost died in an obnoxious way.

I had my gallbladder surgery on August 25. It had been acting up again for days no matter what I did and did not eat, to the point they almost yoinked it early. But I assured them I could hold out until the 25th. I did not want to miss work before my planned absence. By the time they did get in there though, my gallbladder was so inflamed and angry, what is normally a 30 to 45 minute surgery took 2 hours. But they got it out and sent me home.

I was in pain so I went heavy on the pain meds. Only, I forgot about the stool softeners and they didn’t send me home with a script. So I just didn’t take any. I’m not sure if they reminded me in post op or not, but either way I didn’t even think about it. Until I was so constipated I was in pain. I bought OTC stool softeners and laxatives. They did nothing. I tried a horrible drink made if water and epsom salt which never fails. It failed. I went to the ER and told them everything. They gave me an enema. I pooped. I continued with the stool softeners. I was pretty ok there.

Only I was still in a world of pain. I was at a 10 on the pain scale. But I had been at like a 12 (numbers don’t stop at 10) and I assumed this was normal for having removed a very angry gallbladder. So the pain isn’t why I went back to the ER.

See, I had this cough. I wanted to be sure I hadn’t caught post op pneumonia. So off to the ER I went for X-rays. Only, their concern was a blood clot in my lungs and they threw me into a CT machine.  They scanned my chest and my abdomen.  My lungs were fine.

But there was a huge (huge) pocket of fluid in my abdomen about where my gallbladder used to be (which explains why I looked and felt 10 months pregnant) and my white blood count was double what it should be which meant I was septic. I was quickly given heavy doses of every antibiotic ever and transported to the hospital where I’d had the surgery. (I had gone to a standalone ER that isn’t attached to a hospital because I figured it would be an in and out matter.) They installed a drain so they could get the fluid out and determine what it was. The good news is it was just bile which meant my liver was protesting the ordeal of the angry gallbladder and surgery and was leaking. While this, of course, isn’t ideal, it stopped on its own and the drain did its job of collecting it. I was in the hospital for a few days for observations. Once the output had slowed down enough to indicate it would for sure eventually stop on its own, they sent me home drain and all. Which hurts like a bitch, btw.

But it did eventually stop and the drain came out and here I sit about a month later at work perfectly fine. But it took a lot of time, and a steady stream of pain meds (paired with the stool softeners) to get me here.

In annoying, though not deadly, news, where my belly had more swelling than I realized thanks to the cancer and angry gallbladder, now that both have been dealt with, I’ve gone down a pants size. I’ve also somehow lost hips and ass. So my pants and skirts that fit perfectly are now too big and the clothes that were already a little big after March’s surgery but stayed on thanks to my hips… well… there ain’t damn thing keeping them up. So I need new jeans, shorts, skirts, the works. I’m kinda pissed about it, honestly. I also lost tits and my favorite dresses that were already a little too big… well… I swim in them now. My heart broke over that one. I have replaced them though. I live in that style of dress so I invested in 3 to replace the 2. I don’t want to even talk about the 4 bras that I JUST bought and that fit PERFECTLY 2 months ago being too big now.

Alright. I’m going to try and go back to writing weekly again now that things have calmed down. So hopefully that pans out. Meanwhile this post was written on my phones please excuse lack of proper editing. This app and my phone are struggling to get along. So this post is what it is.