In August 2024, I underwent surgery to have my gallbladder removed. Ever since then, I've been wanting to write up a blog post about my experience. Since it's been a year, I suppose now is a pretty good time, especially before I start to forget important details.

CONTENT WARNING: Obviously, this post includes a lot of descriptions of medical stuff and gross stuff, given that it's about a part of my digestive system failing. There's also some talk about body weight and problems with food. Probably best to avoid this post if you don't want to read about these things.

Also the title is a joke that I just couldn't get out of my head, but like, don't lose your gallbladder if you can help it. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but it's not like it's a useless organ. It is possible to survive without it, and most people do fine after it's removed (spoilers: I'm one of them), but some people don't, and sometimes multiple surgeries are required. It seems to be kind of a crapshoot who sees success and who doesn't. Take care of yourselves!

In April 2023, I was watching a video game stream when I started to experience excruciating pain in the center of my chest, just below my breasts. I'd say right around the area where the esophagus connects to the stomach. It eventually got to be bad enough that it radiated to my back, and all I could do was curl up in pain. Eventually I went to my parents, telling them how terrible I felt, and of course we were all worried, but it ended up dissipating as I walked around. A scary incident, but it was gone! Hopefully it wouldn't come back again!

It ended up coming back around ten more times, more severe each time. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Actually, I had been to a gastroenterologist before these attacks started happening. It's honestly hard to remember what I was experiencing before they began. A general feeling of discomfort in the same area, I think? And some trouble with what I though was acid reflux. Enough for me to notice it and bring it up, but not enough to be extremely worrisome. An ultrasound to check my gallbladder was suggested at the time, but I turned it down. This was probably a mistake.

In November 2023, after more attacks, I ended up getting an endoscopy to check out the area. If you're not sure what that is, it's where you're sedated and a camera is pushed down your throat so your esophagus and stomach can be examined. They found nothing but mild gastritis, but the level of pain I was experiencing couldn't really be explained by that. …Also I somehow ended up wetting myself a little while I was knocked out and didn't notice until my mom was leading my loopy ass out to the car to take me home. Shout out to all my fellow weak bladder girlies out there.

I discovered during this procedure that I actually feel great after being anesthetized. My mom often reacts pretty poorly to it, getting nauseous and taking a long time to fully come out of it, but I feel like a princess waking up from a nap with sun beams pouring through the window and little singing birds flitting around. It feels like a really good sleep and I become lucid pretty quickly, not like I got conked on the head with a baseball bat.

Nothing else really happened appointment-wise for six months after that, but it wasn't as if the problem passed. All that time, I would occasionally have an attack that would seemingly come out of nowhere and completely incapacitate me while it happened. I got through some of them by just breathing a particular way, holding my stomach, moving my legs a lot. I thought I had found ways to maintain a certain amount of control over them, but nope. Eventually they got bad enough that I felt like I needed to vomit. And the first couple of times I got this feeling, I didn't. But that didn't last long. The pain was so horrific that I would be doubled over on the bathroom floor just waiting to throw up, because that seemed to be the only thing that could alleviate it. The best position for me to be in was on my knees with the top of my head down on the floor, arms holding my stomach while I breathed through it. And that only helped a little bit, but it was better than nothing. One time I decided to try taking painkillers to see if they would help, but I ended up just throwing them right back up. There was no point. But I had honestly never been so relieved to throw up in my life. With a couple of exceptions, the pain would go away immediately.

Throughout all this, I actually never ended up in the emergency room. It's a very common story that people with gallbladder problems go at least once, sometimes undergoing emergency surgery to have it removed right then and there, but there were some key differences with what was happening to me. I'll explain in a moment, but I don't think I was actually experiencing what people usually refer to as "gallbladder attacks". Gallbladder attacks are generally described as lasting a very long time—hours and sometimes even days—with nothing capable of providing relief, except maybe very strong painkillers from a hospital. They also frequently have a clear food trigger, happening within an often predictable amount of time after eating certain things. All of this is caused by a gallstone getting stuck in a duct, which can take a long time to pass. Kinda similar to passing a kidney stone. There can be some variation to this, but that's generally how it seems to go.

What I believe I was experiencing was bile reflux. No doctor ever actually told me this, I just came to the conclusion by doing some reading. I was mostly confused by the fact that I could get some relief by throwing up, which isn't characteristic of a standard gallbladder attack, but does seem to be possible sometimes with bile reflux. Believe it or not, the horrible pain I was experiencing was actually the better outcome, because I don't think I ever had an attack that lasted more than 30 to 45 minutes, and I at least knew there was a reliable way to make it go away, though I would have to wait until I felt the urge to vomit for that to happen. There were a couple of times where I considered an emergency room trip, but thankfully it never happened. Oh yeah, and my attacks didn't have a predictable food trigger. I did avoid the kinds of foods that tend to cause gallbladder attacks as best as I could—this mostly means fatty foods—but I don't recall ever having an attack and then thinking "oh yeah, it's because I ate that specific thing". They would also not happen at predictable times, though they did usually happen at night. Actually, lying down was a trigger. A couple of times, I woke up in the middle of the night because I started having an attack. This is also a thing with stomach acid reflux. It's just how gravity and liquids work, if something is going wrong with your body to prevent those liquids from staying where they should.

Anyway, I went on a two week trip to Japan in April 2024, and I actually did just fine, no attacks, thank goodness! But I also didn't feel capable of enjoying food as much as I usually would, and I had a bad time on the plane home. This might not have been fully because of the gallbladder problems. I was pretty exhausted after spending so long in a very different time zone and exerting myself so much, after all. I basically can't sleep on plane rides even if they're really long and I tend to feel ill when I'm just… Uncomfortable for a long time. But I ended up throwing up for the first time ever on a flight, and was unable to eat much of my food. Even though it was Japanese airline food! Japanese airlines have pretty good food, even for us poor saps in economy! Well, I enjoyed it a lot on the flight going there, at least.

About a month later, the day after my birthday in May, I finally had that ultrasound that had been suggested to me long before. And sure enough, they found gallstones. But no change in the size of my gallbladder. Regardless, it was clear that the gallbladder needed to go. Gallstones aren't necessarily a problem if there's no symptoms present—although they could be a "ticking time bomb" of sorts—but I was in pain and that seemed like a clear cause.

So in early July 2024, I met with a surgeon and had the surgery scheduled, with at least two weeks of recovery time following it before I could mostly return to normal life. I was a little sad because the best time window available meant I had to skip out on a convention I really wanted to go to for the full weekend, but this ended up not being a complete loss for me.

The month and a half or so that passed between the scheduling and the surgery itself was a blur. A lot of planning, a lot of getting things sorted out at work so I could take the time off, a lot of anxiety. At some point I had a phone call with the hospital staff to go over what to expect and how to prepare. But my symptoms also worsened. From what I've seen anecdotally, I feel like this happens a lot with people who are just about to have a procedure done. We're kind of in denial until the surgery we know deep down we really need is finally set into place, and that denial holds the symptoms back to some extent, to where we can kid ourselves into thinking that maybe we'll be fine. But then all hell breaks loose when we finally accept that we need the help. Once again, it was never bad enough to send me to the emergency room, but I was absolutely having attacks that had me yelling "GET THIS THING OUT OF ME." Eating wasn't impossible, but it was VERY difficult. The amount of food and types of food I could eat gradually dwindled. Nausea, or simply a general sense of food aversion, was an everyday problem. I remember going to a convention for one day right before my surgery consultation and feeling hopeless when looking around for food. I was hungry, but all I could stomach was salted and lightly buttered popcorn. I lost a good amount of weight, but I'm happy to say I gained it all back fairly quickly after the surgery.

I worked right up until the day before the surgery, but I wasn't in fantastic shape and had to take a couple of those days off due to attacks. In the few days leading up to the surgery, I had to wash myself with an antibacterial soap to make sure my skin was super clean. Thankfully we already had some since my mom has had multiple surgeries of her own in recent years. The night before the surgery, I had to stop eating and drinking pretty early. The eating part wasn't so bad, but not having water was hard since I live in a dry climate and tend to need a lot of it. All I could do was tough it out. The last thing I wanted was to be throwing up and possibly choking under anesthesia.

I don't remember how well I slept the night before the surgery, but it's not like it mattered much since I was going to get knocked out anyway and could nap as much as I wanted when I got home. My mom and I got to the hospital bright and early. Before leaving, I had to shower one more time with that special soap, but I couldn't put any lotions or deodorant on. I usually apply lotion to my face and legs after every shower, so between that and the lack of water, I was feeling like a dried out husk at this point. While stripping down to get into the hospital gown, I had to once again make sure I was suuuper duper clean by wiping myself off with a series of disposable antibacterial towels based on a chart that showed exactly how and where I was supposed to use them. Then I got into the hospital bed, which was quite cozy actually, and the nursing staff got me ready and asked me questions. My IV was put in the back of my hand and I absolutely hated it, in the times I've needed IVs I've almost hated them as much as the procedure itself. There was a spot on my arm I was concerned about—they tell you to ensure your body doesn't have any cuts or scrapes in the surgery prep instructions, to prevent infection—and they did take a closer look at it, but they ultimately decided it wasn't a concern (spoilers: it didn't pose a problem and it went away).

My mom was very supportive and comforting throughout all this, staying by my side until it was time to go to the operating room. But soon enough I was being wheeled back, and she went off to have a coffee while she waited. Funny enough, I started to feel hungry for the first time that morning as I was being wheeled down the hall to the room. I told the nurse this, and she laughed.

The freakiest and most unexpected part of this whole process for me was that I needed to put myself on the operating table. They wheeled my bed up to the side of the table, and asked me to lift myself onto it. Since this was my first time experiencing surgery on this level (previously the biggest procedure I had done was wisdom teeth removal), I actually thought that the bed I was already on might serve as the operating table, or that I would be knocked out first and then the staff would all lift me up onto it. But nope, I had to do it myself (with a little bit of help)!. I was really surprised, honestly. I haven't seen much in the way of medical shows, but maybe I got an incorrect impression from TV.

The table had a piece of slightly sticky paper on it to prevent my body from slipping, because operating tables are surprisingly narrow. My hair had been put in a hair net, but I have a lot of fucking hair and it's difficult to keep under control, so I believe some of it fell out at this point and they needed to stuff it back in there for me (lmao). I of course left my glasses behind, and I have very blurry vision without them, but that was honestly a good thing in this situation. I could see that there was a lot of mysterious mechanical equipment on the perimeter of the room, and a table with a bunch of probably scary looking tools laid out on it, but I couldn't see them in detail. Good—I didn't want to!

Then it was time for me to just sit back and wait to fall asleep. The guy who was in charge of my anesthesia kinda rubbed me the wrong way with his demeanor, but whatever, the anesthesia worked as intended so I can't complain. I remember staring up at the light on the ceiling, a mask being placed over my face, and something about my vision or hearing (or maybe both) going weird in a way I can't recall, and then I was out.

I had a laparoscopic surgery, meaning there were four small incisions made in my abdomen that allowed for a small camera and tools to get into my body. The use of the camera negates the need for a large incision. Some gallbladder removals require a large cut, but my understanding is that's usually in circumstances where the gallbladder has swelled, or if there's risk of rupture. I was told there was a chance I would need a larger incision and they wouldn't know until they could get a look at my gallbladder, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Three of the incisions were in various spots along my stomach, and one was right at the bottom of my navel, which I wasn't expecting at all and kinda freaked me out honestly!! All of them were sealed with glue, not stitches, which eventually came off on its own. I can't remember how long the surgery took, but it was straightforward.

After all that, I slowly woke up in a dimly lit recovery room, once again feeling very refreshed! I'm pretty sure I was smiling! I was given some water (finally!) and soon wheeled to a different recovery area where my mom could meet me and we could go over what I needed to know about my recovery. And then I threw up my water… I guess I don't exactly feel 100% after anesthesia. Maybe more like 90%, because I felt fine again after throwing up once. I did have a small patch put behind my ear that administers a medication that helps with nausea, though.

And then we went home! Mom driving, of course. No driving for me until I was off the anesthesia and opiod pain medication. I felt like I could have walked just fine but I was given a wheelchair and pushed out to the car, I'm sure for liability reasons. I may have been confident about my faculties but I'm sure there have been problems in the past with people insisting they can walk and then falling on their asses.

I ate a light meal as soon as I could after getting home, I was genuinely hungry. I was given some saltine crackers in recovery but decided to save them. For the next several days I was pretty much surviving on things like bread and toast with low fat spreads, salted crackers, slices of lean meats like turkey and chicken, fruits that aren't very acidic. Avoiding things with a lot of fat, because the gallbladder is an organ for storing the bile used to process fats and my body was going to have some trouble with that until my liver could figure out how to do it on its own. I was just going to have to gradually work my way back up to my usual diet.

And so, I mostly stayed home and rested for two weeks. It turned out my recovery time lined up perfectly with an event for one of my Ensemble Stars oshis (Aira) on the English language server, so I went all out on that, even more than I initially planned to. I played a lot of Power Wash Simulator on my Switch while also playing enstars on my phone. I spent a lot of time writing and got through three entire chapters of a five chapter fic (also for enstars). I went for short walks with my mom and our dog. I slept a lot, having a little trouble with pain from my incisions… I'm not a small lady, I've got some belly rolls, and it turns out when you're a side sleeper and have an EXTREMELY nasty bruise below your belly button, gravity pulling down your belly fat can be pretty uncomfortable!

Sleeping also caused a different problem: Another bile reflux attack, just as severe as I experienced before the surgery. I was honestly horrified when this happened, believing it had been solved. Unfortunately, at least early on, that wasn't the case. If I'm remembering correctly, I only had one full blown attack after the surgery, but I got on top of figuring out what could be done about it. I may have had some near misses that scared me into finding a new solution. It turns out psyllium husk binds to bile and therefore helps keep it under control, and psyllium husk is a very common fiber supplement. My mother already had some, so I started taking it. It did help, but my surgeon eventually put me on a medication that's usually used for controlling diarrhea after gallbladder removal (a common issue, but not one I dealt with) and it helped even more. It was a powder mixed with water and was gross as hell, and I needed to make sure to brush my teeth right after taking it so it wouldn't destroy my enamel, but it did the trick and gave my body the opportunity to properly adapt without me having to suffer through it. I don't take this medication anymore and haven't for a while, but I'm doing fine without it.

The recovery mostly went quite well, and I made a speedy recovery. Despite the few setbacks, it was honestly pretty smooth sailing for me compared to other accounts I've read. When the weekend of that anime convention I wanted to go to came around, I found myself feeling like I could actually do it, but only for one day. I cancelled my hotel reservation, knowing that being that far away from home for several days so soon after a major surgery was downright dangerous regardless of how good I felt. I'm pretty damn stubborn though, really wanting to make something work in some capacity once I set my mind to it, so I settled for one afternoon. I skipped Friday, believing I could go on Saturday for a more exciting time, but ultimately felt crappy that day. Sunday was the day, though. Not as exciting as the other days, but better than nothing. I had already stopped taking the stronger opiod medications, so I was clear to drive. It was just a matter of if I was comfortable enough to drive. I did a quick test drive and found that as long as I sat up VERY straight, as straight as I possibly could, then I wouldn't be putting any pressure on that nasty bruise and could do it. So I did! Nine days after my surgery! And I had a lovely time! I'm really glad I took the chance. I had to wear an oufit that was a little more plain than I like to ensure there was nothing pressing into an incision, and once again I had trouble eating—all I had was a small loaf of bread—but otherwise, it was a good time. I was strong enough to carry around my pretty large kohaai itabag (a ship from enstars that I really love), and I felt really good getting all that exercise.

The day before I was set to return to work, slightly more than two weeks after my surgery, was actually Mom's birthday. We had a reservation for afternoon tea to celebrate. I was a bit worried that the food wouldn't agree with me, but I went without hesitation, and it was a wonderful experience. Afternoon tea is actually a perfect opportunity to test out different foods because the portion sizes are so small, and I had no trouble with any of them. It was all delicious, and the place we went to for the tea was gorgeous and fun to explore.

After this, I felt confident that I could return to my normal life without any trouble. It still took me a while to re-build my food tolerances, and I stayed on the medication the surgeon prescribed me for several months, but a year later, I'm doing great! My body has adapted well to this new reality. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I could have kept my gallbladder and just depended upon that medication and psyllium husk to keep my bile under control, especially because the lab that examined my gallbladder to ensure there was no cancer present described it as not appearing obviously unhealthy aside from the stones. But considering where I am now and what level of pain I was in, I do think removing it was the right choice. I currently take a small amount of psyllium husk before bed, but I have some mild trouble with stomach acid and it also seems to help me with that. I'm starting to treat the underlying issue by reducing my dosage of another medication.

As I type this, I'm actually a little less than a week away from going to that very same convention I had to mostly skip out on while I was recovering. But this time, I really am staying for the entire weekend! I even have reservations for dinner at the hotel where it's being held, and am bringing a big bag of my own food to cover some of my other meals. I've been looking forward to this for about two years now, and I'm so incredibly excited. The fact that I can go without worry and enjoy whatever foods I want feels like a triumph to me!

The surgery cost ended up being entirely covered by charity after I applied for financial aid, so I really have completely moved on with my life at this point. It's funny to think of how different this August 23rd is compared to the August 23rd I lived through exactly one year ago. There's still a remnant of the surgery with me—the small pink scars on my body that are gradually fading but still quite visible—but I spend most days completely forgetting that I don't have a gallbladder anymore, and that's the best possible outcome.