Gallstone Pancreatitis

Four weeks after the birth of our son, Landen, in late February, I started having some kind of attacks in my abdomen. These attacks were very sudden, sometimes sending me to the floor, and extremely painful! The excruciating pain was at the very top center of my abdomen. At first it lasted anywhere from 15-30 mintues and then more recently the attacks lasted an hour! After I continued to have random attacks I noticed these common symptoms: severe pain in abdomen, pain radiated to my back, I was nauseous, and had chills. After I mentioned my symptoms to my mom she immediately said it was my gallbladder! In addition to my family history of gallbladder problems it is also very common for women to experience problems with their gallbladder after childbirth. We researched a little online and I had every symptom related to gallbladder trouble! Our plan was to wait for an attack and just go to the ER rather than going to a couple of doctors and several appointments.....but that became very difficult because the majority of my attacks happened late at night and by the time we could get someone to our house to watch the boys the attack would be over. No point in going to the ER then! Well, for a few weeks I was attack free so we thought maybe everything was fine now. However, it wasn't long before the attacks started happening again! So, two weeks ago my husband got me an appointment with my family doctor on Monday. He agreed that he thought it was my gallbladder the only thing was...my pain was not where my gallbladder was. He ordered an ultrasound and it was scheduled for Thursday morning. Well those plans changed when I had another really bad attack on Tuesday night around 10:45. It was the worst yet....lasting for two hours! As soon as the attack started Luke called his sister Katie to come stay with the boys. As soon as she arrived we went to the closest ER. I'll spare the details with my ER and hospital stay because it wasn't the greatest! Around 3am I had an ultrasound and it was revealed that I had gallstone pancreatitis. I was then admitted to the hospital. I was not allowed to eat so that the inflammation in my pancreas could subside and surgery had to wait as well. So Wednesday was the waiting day and Thursday was surgery day. I was nervous since this was a completely new experience for me. Until then I had only been in a hospital for childbirth and I had never been put to sleep. Thankfully though I have the best family who were constantly there for me and most importantly I know my Heavenly Father was with me through everything! I was able to have laparoscopic surgery with 4 small incisions. That is amazing! I spent the rest of Thursday and Friday morning recovering and was able to go home after lunch on Friday. We were so ready to go home as you can imagine! I've been taking it easy this past week and am almost good as new! My family has been a huge blessing through all of this and we couldn't have gotten through it without them! It was a huge relief to know the boys were constantly in good hands! =) Oh yeah, I must say my favorite part about my hospital stay was TLC, I got to watch a lot of Duggars! ;)

This is the crazy part though.....earlier this week my sister, who is expecting a baby this October, was taken to the ER where she was diagnosed with gallstones. She is seeing a surgeon on Monday to see if her gallbladder needs to be taken out now or after the baby is born. I guess it runs in the family.....