Surgery Scheduled for November 9, but could be sooner

My surgeon, Dr. Peter Mowschenson, was busy in the OR all day today, so he wasn't available to help me get onto the OR schedule in October -- yet.  So I took the first opening I could get through his office: 1:00 PM on Tuesday, November 9.  Seems nice and far in the future, way too early to start worrying.  But not too soon to start planning!  So I need to find help with

1. Moral support & hand-holding on November 8
2. Ride to hospital on November 9
3. Someone to hold my hand before and after surgery
4. Ride home on November 10 (we hope!)
5. Friendship and camaraderie Nov. 10-17
6. Meals, chores, errands, etc., Nov. 10-17

I don't even know what I'll be able to eat during that first week.  Maybe I can find out, and make things ahead of time to keep in the freezer.  I guess I should get started, especially since the date of surgery might get moved up much sooner.

Comforting thought

Today a friend told me that when doctors speak to their patients about upcoming surgery to remove gall bladder, it's typical for them to say they plan to do it laparoscopically but that things could change mid-procedure.  I found this extremely comforting, even though I know that in my case Dr. Mowschenson could very well run into a belly full of scar tissue.

New name for the surgery

Trying to look on the bright side and be optimistic, I've invented a new name for the surgery I have to have: it's a Chutzpectomy.  You can figure out the pun.

Good news: no blockage. Bad news: Gall stones

The MRI showed that I have no bowel blockages.  Hooray!

But it also showed that I have gall stones.  Dr. Mowschenson says this is most probably the cause of the pain, and he wants to remove my gall bladder.

Yikes!  More surgery.  Big questions of whether to go through with it, when to do so, and how to schedule Hebrew classes this fall, not knowing how I'll feel or what recovery will be like.

Hopefully the surgery can be done laparoscopically, but if I have many abdominal adhesions from my complete colectomy (2003), surgery would be bigger and require longer recovery.

It's a challenge to get myself back into proper mood for big Sukkot party tomorrow.

MRI Enterography

Tomorrow I have my first MRI -- enterography, which means they'll take pictures of my guts to see whether any partial bowel blockages have built up.  If so, it would explain all the agony I've experienced in the last few weeks, almost every time I eat.  Have been on a low-fiber diet for one week; it seems to be helping (less pain), but is a bummer in the middle of harvest season and the Jewish holidays.

I had previously understood that MRIs are dangerous to people whose bodies contain metal.  My leg is still full of hardware, which has always stopped the docs from wanting to use MRI on me.  When scheduling this enterography they asked whether I had any metal in my body; of course I said Yes.  Titianium? they asked.  No, stainless steel, I answered.  Oh, that's fine.  Titanium would be fine, too.  So which is the "bad" metal?  I don't know.

I'll receive the results of the MRI enterography in a few days.  For now, feeling a bit nervous about my guts!