Surgery City!

Well, for some reason, our little family has decided to keep the health industry in business this past 7 months! We've racked up over $50,000 in medical bills over that span, and the number is still growing. As of right now, we only owe about $2,000 thanks to Paul's aMAZing insurance, which we are just so thankful for.

Needless to say, between Johnny's kidney surgery, my emergency C-section with Zach, and my emergency gallbladder removal last week, we are eager to move on to greener (and healthier) pastures! After Zach was born, I noticed I had a really hard time with digestion for a while. I thought it was maybe just part of C-section recovery or something, but then it started getting worse instead of better. I tried not to complain about it too much, but let's just say...I was miserable. The first time I had a real attack, I thought it was food poisoning. Then when it happened a few more times, I realized no one could possibly be THAT unlucky with food poisoning, so maybe I had a food allergy. I started trying to tweak my diet but that didn't help me either. Finally about a month ago, I decided to tell Paul what was really going on. I hadn't been telling anyone, but I would get really sick 3 or 4 nights out of the week. Paul goes to bed early so I didn't want to bug him about it, but then I finally couldn't take it anymore.

I had done a little research and discovered that the location of the sharp pain and all of the other symptoms were indicative of gallbladder disease. I told Paul I suspected it might be a gallbladder problem and that I was going to start eating differently. However, about a week after I told him this, I had a MASSIVE gallbladder attack and almost went to the emergency room. The pain started ebbing a little, so I decided I would wait until morning so we wouldn't have to pay huge ER bills.

First thing the next morning, I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for 1:45. At noon, it hurt too much for me to wait any longer, so I had Kelsey come watch my boys while I drove myself to the ER. There they told me it would be at least a couple hours before I could see anyone, so I decided to just wait it out until my scheduled appointment. Dr. Roberts decided my symptoms probably were gallbladder problems, but they would have to do an ultrasound to double check. They couldn't schedule one until the next morning, so she sent me home with pain killers. The ultrasound, however, did not reveal any stones. The only next step was to do a HIDA scan (SUPER not fun scan where they make your gallbladder contract and watch it to see if it's doing its job), which they couldn't schedule until the following Tuesday.

SO.....we waited out the weekend, me on pain pills and basically just dying while family and friends helped with the kids. Tuesday finally came around, and I went and had the HIDA/torture scan done. I called the doctor later that afternoon, and (surprise!) she wasn't in that day! The super nice on-call doctor (I think it was Dr. Kohtz) finally called me back and personally contacted all the surgeons in town so I could get the fastest surgery possible. What a relief! It was still 2 days later that Dr. McKain did the surgery, but from a surgeon's standpoint, that's really fast.

I finally had surgery 10 days after my initial ER visit, and what a relief it was to have it done! It's been a rough week of recovery, but I can already tell a difference in the things I'm able to eat. All I know is that I am SO grateful for the medical knowledge we have today. I'm also grateful to a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to teach me patience and long-suffering. If it wasn't for these hard times, I wouldn't be able to experience so much joy during the good times. The law of opposition comes to mind frequently when I'm going through things like this. I know that in order to truly appreciate the beautiful blessings I've been given (and I HAVE been given so many), I have to endure trials. I'm just glad this one's behind me now!