Hello! What a week!

First, I'd like to thank all of you for hanging in here with me. I have not been very good about keeping up with this blog and I'm sorry if I've worried any of you. This last week has proven to be much harder than it was suppose to be, at least according to anyone who has ever had this surgery before.
So, the story goes like this:
Rod and I had been talking to my doctor off and on all day Monday. By late Monday afternoon, it was pretty obvious that this pain (that had started Sunday evening after some DELICIOUS onion rings from Lazlo's!) wasn't going to get better. In fact, it kept getting worse. So, she told me to have Rod take me down to the hospital by around 6:30 and she would have things lined up for admissions. After just a short wait, I was taken up to the 9th floor and started getting settled in a room. But, a nurse came in and told me that I was in the wrong room and I was then ushered to a room at the other end of the hall. About two minutes after I got in there, the tornado siren goes off and all of the patients were ushered into the hall where we stayed for the next hour, without pain medicine and with Rod and Nick prancing around like a couple of bears trying to get me some drugs! I knew it was not going to be a "regular" hospital visit!
I spent Tuesday taking pain meds,getting hooked up to IV fluids, getting my blood drawn and getting bags of "ffp" which is fresh-frozen-plasma. My blood was too thin for surgery due to the fact that I take coumadin for my PH. When I received the third bag, I had an allergic reaction. All of my skin turn red, was burning and then I broke out in hives- everywhere! After a couple of doses of IV Benedryl, I was better. But, my blood was still too thin, so I had to get some injections instead. Yippee!
Wednesday was surgery day. I wasn't on the schedule until 4:00 but I was promised they would do whatever they could to get me in earlier. My blood was still too thin anyway so it gave them time to give me another Lovinox shot. They also needed to give me a large dose of steroids before surgery since my body doesn't make any on it's own. Of course there was quite a bit of discussion about how much to give me since I had "issues" with the large doses I received in May.
Surgery went well. I was told by the anesthesiologist that I was going to be a tricky case because of the PH. But, an hour later I was in recovery feeling great! The hospital was very busy and I had to wait in recovery for about 4-5 hours before I was sent up to the 8th floor where I shared the room with a woman who was in serious need of a c-pap machine!
I spent Thursday blowing up....with fluid. In fact, I kept having increased pressure in my belly and when I went to the bathroom, I'd notice that my face was looking puffy. The IV fluids, surgery and the fact that I was on additional steroids caused me to retain lots of fluid. In fact, when I got home I discovered that I had gained over 20 pounds of fluid!
I was discharged early in the afternoon on Friday.
I’m very frustrated with how slowly I’m bouncing back from this. As of this morning, I’m down about 10 of the 20+ pounds of fluid I gained. So much of it is in my belly. The pressure and pain from all of this fluid in my belly is the biggest problem. Everything I read about having laproscopic gallbladder surgery led me to believe that I’d be feeling great and ready to do my regular routine in just a day or two. In fact, I received an e-mail from a friend who knew someone who had the same surgery on the same day and was at a party on Saturday night! Here it is Tuesday and I’m still uncomfortable! I feel like such a weanie!
OK, enough whining.
Thanks for reading!

Annette