Finally got to watch the DVD of the op last night. Jeez, I was exhausted afterwards. What a struggle he had to cut and get the gallbladder out. We could see it bursting open (or maybe he cut it deliberately) and the stones were popping out, looking like green boulders. I have to say the area looked like there'd been a gruesome massacre as he used a burning tool to separate the gb from the liver. I bet it smelled like a BBQ in the operating theatre. We could see the smoke rising and also, sometimes, flames where he was burning through me. My poor, poor liver
. What a mess it looked at the end, but I assume it will recover. Somehow, liver and onions doesn't have the same appeal anymore
.
So much equipment coming into play, crocodile grabber, another kind of tool for grabbing, burning tool, camera, cutters, suction and washing tool, tubing, packing material, needle and 'thread' and, of all things, a nylon basket to collect all the debris at the end. He'd packed it so full he couldn't pull it out through the hole, which may have been my belly button. We even saw the T tube going in (reluctantly, as it kept popping out). That bit worried me because it's still inside me and needs to come out in a few weeks. The needlework that stitched the tube in place and repaired the bile duct was 'interesting'. Don't think he'd have scored many points for neatness. Still can't figure out how he's going to remove the tube, but I'll leave it to him to worry about.
At some stages it looked like there was scaffolding in there because of the amount of metal tools on the go. One shot looked like someone had left a few nails lying around, but I guess not
. The pushing and pulling, burning and cutting he did, I truly can't understand how I'm up, walking around and feeling pretty good. I had to keep reminding myself it was me it was happening to. I have to applaud the people that do this kind of surgery as recovery is so much quicker and less painful. I could feel the doc's confusion as he tried to figure out the best way to go about sorting the mess out. The film went quiet a few times and perhaps this was him taking a break as I'm sure he needed it.
I would stress that this was a particularly difficult gb op (I can never do anything straight forward
). Anyone reading this who may be facing such an op will no doubt fly through it without a problem, so they don't need to worry. It should only have taken 20 mins. but took 3 and half hours, so that tells you it wasn't a normal run-of-the-mill op.
I'd post up the video in case anyone is interested, but not sure how to go about it. I'll have to scout around and investigate.