The Good in the Bad

By now, half the world probably knows I ended up in the ER late on Wednesday night with a gallbladder attack, was admitted and then had my gallbladder removed at 7 p.m. on Friday night while most people were either a) at dinner and a movie or b) watching the Haiti telethon.

As with every trip to the hospital there are ups and down. And I could regale you with some complete horrors of my stay, but since I'm feeling much more positive after getting a night of rest and after getting discharged, I'm only going to emphasize the positive.

Nurses make or break your hospital stay. That's just how it is. If you end up in the emergency room at Carle, think good thoughts that you get Wendy as your nurse. She's awesome. She's funny, chatty, extraordinarily responsive, and she doesn't mess around when it comes to giving you pain relief.

If you end up on the 4th floor of the North Tower, the gods will have smiled down on you if you get Amy, Erica or Courtney as your RNs. They're attentive, thorough and also put a key emphasis on responsiveness, pain management and humanity. You'll also be cheered by Wayne's warm greeting to take your vitals at 6 a.m.

If you're in the hospital, you probably have a life at home that's not being attended to and a spouse who is flipping out a bit because his wife, who manages everything at home, isn't around. Then you're both grateful for friends like Quigs, KTDID, Libbygirl, Special K, Dri and Ian of the North and my favorite family members, who not only call and check up on you frequently, they take your child (our most precious cargo) for a few hours, do your laundry, make meals, send flowers and show up for a visit. And then there's the legion of awesome folks who make the offer to help and know that they're on call if we need them.

The support network we've made in Champaign helped us a lot this week. I thank all of you for your good thoughts and love. You're loved right back.

I'm slow and steady right now at home. Walking feels okay, but stairs are difficult. I get tired easily. Mostly, I'm glad not to have someone waking me every hour to give me shots in my belly or poke me to take blood. I'm also thankful to be able to eat food. I spent 53 hours without any kind of food or water out of the 63 hours I was at the hospital. I'm getting my pineapple fix tonight. My high liver enzymes were coming down within 8 hours of having the gallbladder removed, but I have to go back to the lab to get a CBC on Monday to make sure they're back to a normal level. I also have a follow up with my surgeon, Dr. Oliphant, in a week.