A few points on brooding… Greta Garbo-style

After recent events I’ve been keeping to myself.

I too, seem to be ensconced on the sofa. But instead of my hands being genteelly folded in my lap, they are skittering over this keyboard. I have draped myself here in a manner most regal, I do not like to be pinned to one spot, I like to move…but sometimes, darlings, babies, doves, that is not such a good thing. Although I had been told to rest, even pleaded with to do so, I employed the Vickie-Knows-Best maneuver and oh did I pay for it, so I am resisting my natural inclination to bounce off the walls and taking the advice of both my body and those who care for me by striking a Garboesque pose.

My darlings, do you know what a gallbladder looks like? Here’s a drawing as the photos are quite appalling:

That big organ, like an umbrella over the green menace (a.k.a., Mr. Pickle) is the liver. Now the liver does everything (and more) that Mr. Pickle manages, and yet it doesn’t develop stones or have to be plucked out in the middle of the night by able surgeons. Like the appendix, the gallbladder is largely redundant.

It came as a reminder of how fragile we are to be attacked from within. I had been feeling somewhat “off” for a while but it was something of a shock to find myself experiencing a rapid sequence of events that would see my recalcitrant gallbladder removed and tossed in the waste basket. Oh, but the most interesting thing to discover was that there was scarring on the unpretty-looking-thing indicating it first got into trouble…even as long ago as last year! Although no one will really say. Golly!

Here are the symptoms, if you have them please seek medical attention and don’t be a dunderhead like I was:

Pain in the upper right abdomen, stabbing into the back.

Distention of mid-section.

Indelicate, but here we go: burping, nausea.

And in my case jaundice and fever, but it doesn’t happen with everyone.

Do you remember, way back when I started this blog? I was so reticent to talk about myself, and now I’m giving interior organs nicknames and talking about digestive problems. And, I’m doling out health care advice. My, my, my. The thing of it is, I am amazingly fortunate. I have a heroic partner who bundled me into the car at 2:30 in the morning and sped to hospital. Once there, the finely attentive doctors and nurses and lab techs eased away the pain with something wonderful dripped from an IV bag, they added healing doses of antibiotics, they scanned me, and prepped me, and in about 30 minutes they performed the surgery.

As to recuperating in the manner of Garbo, the doctors recommend gentle morning walks, no heavy lifting, very little reaching above your head, a light healthy diet, fresh air, plenty of sleep, and lots of fluids.

So here I am, kind of inexplicably broody, but quite healthy and hoping you are too. Blogging might be light in the days to come, but I will try to get back to what’s beguiling and leave gallstones and bile behind.

xox, Vickie