| Hi Christine, I wish somebody had posted your question a week or two ago, when I was wondering the same thing (and too stressed out to think to post.) I had my gall bladder out a week ago yesterday, and it went amazingly well. The surgery started at noon, and by three o'clock I was at Starbucks! Really. The worst part was that I had a sore throat for three days because they weren't too gentle when they stuck a tube down my throat (when I was knocked out.) Otherwise, it was easier, by far, than any medical or dental procedure I have ever endured. I had been dreading this in part because my dad had a really bad experience when he had to have his gall bladder out in an emergency operation in the middle of the night. I learned from that that it makes a lot of sense to have it out in a controlled, non-crisis situation. Indeed, my surgeon confirmed as much. He told me that he has probably taken out about a thousand gall bladders, and 95 percent of the time he can do it laroscopically. I was worried I would be one of the five percent, but he told me that he had had only one case, in more than 20 years of surgery, when someone presented ahead of time in a non-emergency setting and needed to get cut open the old-fashioned way. That did it for me; I was in there voluntarily, before the crisis. Good luck to you, and keep us posted on how it goes! |