Health Scares

Three days before our April break, we had a scare that caused my husband to spend 4 days in the hospital.  At first the doctors thought that perhaps he had a heart attack, but after all is said and done he had A-fib.  He's now on medication to keep his heart rate under control and he feels good.

Two weeks before his scare, I had one myself.  I had a pain in the pit of my stomach that also radiated to my back and between my shoulder blades.  My doctor, wanting to make sure it wasn't my heart, but suspected it was my gallbladder, put me through a series of tests.  I wore a heart monitor for 24 hours, went through a stress test, and had a full abdominal ultrasound done.  During the ultrasound I learned that I had several good-sized gallstones.   There's no infection, but the stones could be causing my symptoms.

Now, in all my 45 1/2 years, I have not spent more than a few hours in the hospital and have never had surgery, other than a breast biopsy last fall.  Now, I may need to have my gallbladder removed.  That seems a bit more invasive than the biopsy I experienced.  Not only that, but I have a cyst at the base of my middle finger, which my surgeon might take care of as well.  I'm worried about complications about that too.


A couple of years ago, a woman I know had her gallbladder removed, but she ended up having complications because the duct was cut too short, or something like that.  And another woman I know had a similar cyst removed and ended up with a trigger finger that never got better.  Like these stories don't freak me out.

Now I'm wondering if anyone out there ever had their gallbladder removed.  What was your experience like?  Were you awake or out like a light?  How was your recovery?  

I guess I just want to ease any fears I have.   I know it could be much worse than just gallstones, but when you've never been through anything like this it can be frightening.