Recovery

Hello Everyone. Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement over the last few days.

Wednesday, Matt and I went to see a specialist about his condition. Upon arrival at the office, there was some confusion about whether Matt needed a referral from his primary (who never saw him about this), which resulted in me almost breaking bad on the Dr.'s office manager. Matt has never been this sick and never needed surgery so I knew as scared as he was, there were going to be some times I was going to have to step up and advocate for my husband. Not being a confrontational person, I really had to suck it up. Anyways, we were relieved to find that as soon as the doctor came into the exam room she knew exactly what was wrong, how to fix it and what to do. He need to have a endoscopic procedure to remove a gallstone from his common bile duct, which is the tube that delivers bile from the liver to the small intestine (in a nutshell). The blockage that he had was causing his bile to back up into his liver and overflow into his bloodstream, which then caused him to have jaundice.

The jaundice was the scariest part for me. It's one thing to hear your spouse/child SAY they don't feel well, but to see them visibly change before your very eyes is pretty terrifying. His skin was yellow, the whites of his eyes were yellow. Scary stuff. Plus the salt from the bile was rising to the surface of his skin and causing him to be extremely itchy. So, since Matt had eaten breakfast that morning, he was scheduled to go to the hospital the next day as an outpatient to get the blockage removed. Alas, by the time we got home that afternoon his pain was so terrible I called the doctor back and she right away to take him to the emergency room. To the hospital we went and waited.

Long story short, Matt was admitted to the hospital that night so that the doctors could keep an eye on him and manager his pain until his procedure the next day. I had to go home that night as I had none of my nightly provisions (contact solution, medicines) with me to stay with him. It is a terrible thing to walk into a hospital with a loved one and have to walk out alone. I cried the whole way home and slept on the beast of a couch that night. The next morning, I was back at the hospital at 7:30am. Matt was not allowed anything to eat or drink until his procedure Thursday afternoon. It was a successful procedure completed in less than an hour. The doctor who did the endoscopic procedure was not a surgeon so he could not remove his gull bladder while he was there, but gave us the name of one he highly recommended.

Since the procedure occurred so late in the day, the attending physician on the hospital floor where Matt was staying advised him to stay another night and go home Friday. I could not face another night at home without him so I had already brought what I would need. I spend the night in a chair next to his bed, being awakened every two hours by someone checking vitals and asking a sleeping man if he "needed anything".

The hospital we stayed at had an excellent staff and was very kind and caring towards Matt and myself. I think they kind of enjoyed having us there as it seemed that every other patient on the floor was above the age of 60. It was a relief to have such knowledgeable staff to help us through this ordeal. The doctors kept in touch with us to make sure Matt was healing well and there was no question about visiting hours or whether or not I would be staying with him. I was always welcomed and never looked down on when I had a question about what was going on.

Monday, we meet with a surgeon to schedule Matt to get his gallbladder out. Thankfully, this will be an outpatient procedure and he should be in and out in one day. I am so thankful to the good lord and the wonderful doctors we had on our side that my husband was able to come home safely.