When Push Comes to Shove

Hey everyone! Long time no update. For those of you who don’t know, I ended up in the hospital last week having my gall bladder removed. Take it from me, it’s not a good way to get out of taking finals.

I had planned on this surgery the following week. Or rather, today, so I could take my finals. I had a severe attack last Sunday, though, and ended up in the emergency room for the 37th time.

Okay, I really have no idea how many times I’ve been to the ER before over my gall bladder, but it’s a lot, all right?

I got to freak my niece out, as well.

My Good Wife and I had just come home from a business trip to Vegas at about 3:30 AM Sunday morning. (Yes, it really was business. Quit smirking.) GW had the good sense to go directly to bed (do not pass Go) when we got home. I tried, but my gall bladder had other ideas. It had been vying for my attention for the last couple of hours of our trip home. I thought about asking GW to drive, but she doesn’t see very well at night.

My Lovely Niece had been staying with the kids over the weekend. She’s 18 now, and getting ready to go off to college (full ride scholarship, no less) this coming fall. All in all, she’s a capable young woman. MLN was sleeping on the coach but started rousing about three hours after we got home. I, on the other hand, had been drifting in and out of exhaustion induced sleep alternating with bouts of increasing pain in my gut. When she, and a couple of my kids, started moving around the house like the little morning zombies they are, I finally gave up. GW was fast asleep and dead to the world. No joining the undead for her. So I turned to MLN and said, “I’d like you to put your shoes on and take me to the hospital, please.”

The look on her face of utter horror and concern was worth the price of admission. Not really, but it sounds good.

MLN did not let me down. In spite of her shock she did just as I asked, and within just a few minutes we were in the emergency room. The doctors did all of the right things, poking and torturing me in just the right ways to make me scream, and then giving me morphine to make me feel better about the abuse. About this time GW had roused herself to consciousness and joined me.

Not in the abuse, just as a witness. You guys really are sick, aren’t you.

Now, I was hoping to feel better and go home. We had scheduled this very surgery for the following week so I could take my finals. As the morphine started wearing off, though, it was clear that this attack was much worse than anything from before. I was still hurting. Not as bad, mind you, but I could still feel it. I talked with the doctor about my concerns and asked him what he thought. My would-be torturer said, quite frankly, “I think you should let us cut it out now. Your surgeon has agreed to do it tomorrow.”

How could I argue with that?

But you’ll have to wait until later for the rest of the story.