Gall Stones and Pacreatitis

As my daughters turned one week old, I was lying in the ER on morphine. It pained me more than the physical pain I was in to see the clock strike 7:53 and know that I wasn’t with them.

The previous evening I was at home after a full day of visitors feeling very uncomfortable. My back had started hurting and I was convinced I had some trapped gas as a side effect of the c section. As the night wore on it got worse. I kept trying to walk around my house to “untrap” the gas, but I could barely walk. Every position was painful. My back was spasaming. A little before midnight, I called the OB. He suggested taking some Antacids and if that didn’t help, go to emergency. I took a Tums and immediately knew it wouldn’t do anything, so I called my mom.

I left the girls with the baby nurse I thankfully have and we spent the night in the ER. Blood tests, an ultrasound and CT Scan confirmed that I had severe pancreatitis caused by gall stones. Around 8 am I was moved to another room that was a holding area for observations. I saw several doctors that told me the pancreatitis was so bad, that we had to wait at least 2 days before doing any procedures.

I ended up spending 5 days in the hospital while my girls were home with my mom and the nurse. I was finally reunited with them on Friday minus one gall bladder. It almost still feels surreal to have gone so quickly after pregnancy back into the hospital with another surgery. All I wanted was to be back home with my babies.

The gall stones after pregnancy is apparently pretty common although I had never heard of it before. I’d never had an issue, at least not that I was aware of. It was definitely both physically and emotionally draining.

Thankfully I had my family and friends looking out for me. I also had really good care at the hospital. I’m starting to feel like my normal self again.

2 thoughts on “Gall Stones and Pacreatitis”

  1. Wow, Sharon! What a crazy thing. I had never heard of that either. Good to know! But sorry you had to find out this way. So glad to hear you are now on the mend and back homework those beautiful babies. 🙂

  2. I think it’s actually pretty common. Owen was 3 weeks old when I had my first bad attack but it took 3 months to get the surgery. I hope your feeling better!!

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