Janet dropped me off at the hospital and then I began the long wait as I was shuffled around from one department to another. The last thing I wanted to do was be in a hospital during a Covid surge, but here we are. After several blood tests and a sonogram, I finally talked to a doctor. The doctor said that I had stones in my bile duct that needed to be removed and that my gall bladder was full of stones. That needs to be removed as well. For the first procedure they will snake a camera and a thin wire down my throat, stomach and intestines to reach the bile duct and remove the stores. This sounds incredibly difficult to me, but the surgeon assured me that he does this every day. There is a small risk of pancreatitis and an even smaller risk of perforating the intestine wall, but the surgeon didn't seem worried. Surgeons never seem worried.
The next day I will have a second surgery to remove my gall bladder. This type of endoscopic surgery is supposed to be minimally invasive with a quick recover time. There is still cutting involved though. I hate the cutting. I'm going to be here a while. They said they planned to release me on Friday morning.
My doctor showed me how to use a special physician referral door to the emergency room. This saves a lot of time. Between some of the tests this evening I was pushed into the general emergency room waiting area for about an hour. This place seemed like one of Dante's circles of hell. People were coughing and half of them probably had Covid. For once I was really glad I was wearing a good N-95 mask. I was glad to return to a private room for the remainder of my tests. I heard that there was a six hour wait for walk ins at the emergency room.
I wasn't expecting to stay overnight, so I asked Janet to bring me my electric razor, a toothbrush, clean underwear, a laptop, and charging cords for all my devices. My phone and watch are dead. I'm actually writing this blog entry on Wednesday morning and backdating it to Tuesday. With all the tests going on, there was no way to write this evening.
Hopefully, everything goes well tomorrow. I don't like hospitals and dislike surgery even more. It is what is is though. This needs to be done and it would be stupid of me to ignore the problem. The doctors said it was a good thing I came in today because if I'd waited there would have been a good chance for a severe liver infection. The last surgery I had was knee surgery back in the early 1970's. I guess it's finally time to do this again.
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