Incomplete Husband and Crazy Christmas

It was an eventful Christmas weekend for us. We knew I was scheduled to work Christmas Eve 6:00 pm to 6:00 am Christmas morning and then Christmas night 6:00 pm to 6:00 am on the 26th. We had made our plans accordingly. We were going to have a delicious lasagna dinner before I went to work on Christmas Eve, then when I got home in the morning if the family wasn’t awake I would wake them up and we would open presents and then I would sleep. We were then going to have dinner at the hospital before I went to work that night (I get free dinner on major holidays, so we figured we’d just take the fam over and enjoy). Then on Sunday night Brian’s brother and his family were going to come down for a Christmas dinner and game playing.

The first kink in that plan came on Christmas Eve afternoon when Brian had such a major gallbladder attack that he couldn’t take a deep breath or talk to me. Needles to say I took him to the ER. They did an ultrasound and found some gallstones, but the gallbladder wasn’t inflamed, his labs were fine, he didn’t have a fever and the pain had subsided so they sent us home with a prescription for pain medicine and a referral for a surgeon. We then frantically tried to find a pharmacy open to fill the scripts and rushed home. Oh and did I mention that my darling daughter was thoughtful enough to try and make us a nice Christmas Eve dinner of eggs and hashbrowns? Yeah, thought not, since she almost burned the house down and set of the smoke alarm twice in the process. I do love her thoughtfulness though. I ran out the door with my scrubs in hand and clocked in to work 15 minutes late. The day shift charge nurse was very understanding, thanks Sarah!!! When I called to check on him he was feeling better. I came home in the morning and Christmas Day went according to plans. Woke everyone up, opened presents, went to sleep, Brian felt okay, kiddos played, woke up, had dinner at the hospital and went to work. It was as good a day as you can expect when you have to work the holidays.

Sunday the 26th Brian just didn’t feel the greatest and I only slept for 2 hours when I got home from work, so we didn’t make it to church. He took it easy and I did some stuff with the kids to get the house ready for Mike and Shelly to come. Right before Mike and Shelly got to our house Brian started to retch but felt like if he laid down he would be okay to wait and see the surgeon on Monday. When Mike & Shelly and their kids got to our house Shelly helped me start dinner and we put out appetizers. We had dinner and were just setting up to play a game (Brian was just resting), I decided to check on him because I had heard him retching again. When I found him in the bathroom, I took one look at him and knew he was becoming jaundiced (turning yellow), and decided I’d better take him to the ER again. When we got there they drew some more labs and started an IV. One of our cute neighbors took care of him in the ER on Christmas Eve and was just getting off work when we came in Sunday night….it was so nice to see a friendly face. Thanks Alyna!!! The ER doctor told us that he would be admitted and that they would probably do surgery that night. When his labs came back he had several that were critical indicating that he had biliary obstruction (his bile duct was blocked by a gallstone) and this had caused pancreatits. He was sick. His liver enzymes which are normally in the mid double digits were over 500, his pancreatic enzyme that is normally 10-140 was 21,000. Holy cow!!! His bilirubin (the level of his jaundice) was 4.6 with normal for an adult being 1 or less. Needless to say, he felt poopy! The surgeon said he wouldn’t take out the gallbladder until the pancreatitis started to resolve and so they just treated his symptoms until he had repeat labs in the morning. They were better, bilirubin was 3.6, and lipase had dropped to 10,000. Surgery was scheduled for around noon. While waiting for surgery he had a reaction to some morphine he got, so they had to switch his pain medicine. He came through the surgery with flying colors (although he was a little upset that I had picked up the kids and wasn’t there when he got out of recovery). So now my darling husband is incomplete, he’s missing his gallbladder. He was feeling much better then next morning and was able to eat, so we got to come home after only 2 nights in the hospital. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and worry, but he was a trooper. The first day home was kindda rough but today he has felt much better and even went for a little ride.

Where were our beautiful kiddos through all of this you ask? We have had amazing support through all of this. Brian’s brother and wife stayed at our house with them until we knew he was being admitted on the 26th. They had to work the next day so they needed to head home to Cedar. Our absolutely amazing friends Sam and Candice without hesitation stepped up to take our kids. Sam met Mike and Shelly at the ER, and Sam and Mike gave Brian a blessing. Then Sam took our kids home with him and they bedded down on the living room floor. Candice kept them most of the next day so I could be at the hospital without worrying about them. The most amazing thing about this? Sam and Candice have 5 children of their own, 2 of which they just adopted from Ethiopia in August. Add to that, Candice’s brother was in town visiting and they had a whole day already planned. They just took my kids along. I cannot express to you how extremely grateful I am to be blessed with such amazing friends. Heavenly Father was certainly looking out for us. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and concern during this difficult Christmas experience.

As a side note, my usually very reserved husband is really funny when he is on drugs.