I Left My Cholecyst in Mexico City

(Yea, you know the tune...get your Tony Bennett on)

 Our house flooding from the cisterns
Seems somewhat slightly witty
The house we bade Shalom
No longer do we pity 
Living large, our new home
In the penthouse rented by State
 But the drama isn't over in Mexico City

I left my cholecyst in El Distrito 
 In a sinking valley, this place taunts me.
To be where textured air from cars
Blocks our views of the stars! 

 The morning smog may last all day
I don't care!
My vesícula biliar lies in a landfill 
Above sewage scented calles 
I'll leave you one day soon, Mexico City,
With memories of my emergency laparoscopic cholecystectomy!


I know, I know, I've promised a blog about our new place as well as an "Only in Mexico" post but I've been sidetracked. This has been the first time I can really type without intense shoulder pain resulting from the surgery...turns out when the surgeon fills your abdomen full of CO2 it causes pain in your shoulders that is worse than pain from the surgery site! Weird!

You can scan the highlights or read the details:

Abdominal pain starts
-Pain starts in my abdomen upon arival back in Mexico on Saturday the 25th of July; brush it off as indigestion...plane food and other snacks during the trip
-Pain attacks continue off and on skipping a day here and there I start to think I may be lactose intolerant after punching in my symptoms on WebMd.com. I do eat a vat of ice cream now and then so it must be catching up to me.
-Find out that several guys in Kris' office have been sick with stomach parasites; these match my symptoms as well. One of Kris' agents flies back to the US because of his condition.

Pain gets worse
-Monday August 3rd, abdominal pain attack that forces me to lie on the couch while trying to breathe deeply. Only slight relief if I lie on my left side. Pain lasts through the night and is only stopped after I throw up at 3am.
-A few days pass, I'm convinced I have parasites...welcome back to Mexico!

The Major Attack
-Wednesday night following a wonderful breakfast for dinner of eggs, bacon, toast and fruit (ok, so we really didn't have any fruit but just pretend we did so it looks like a balanced meal). I started cleaning up dinner when the pains started again so remembering the parasite possibility I chugged some Activia yogurt (rumored to help wage war against the tenements) and laid down on the couch finding only slight relief on my left side.

Tossing and turning through debilitating agony I soon found myself hugging the cool marble floor unable to find a position where I didn’t think I was going to die. Pain worse than labor (and I should know after being forced to experience natural labor this last time around) and lasting several hours. I felt like I was having seizures, unable to control the constrictions of my entire body. I understand both older boys were in their bedrooms praying and scared from the bestial noises I was making while writhing on the floor. I choked out a request for Kris to go in and make sure they were ok and to calm them down. I vaguely remember Kris giving me a blessing and praying for comfort but other than that he had no idea what to do. He kept asking me if I wanted to go to the hospital and I was adamant that I didn't want to. I have a hard time with hospitals in the US much less here in Mexico. It was only parasites after all and it would pass.

I know I drug myself across the floor (the soldier crawl came in to good use after all these years) until I made it to the bathroom where I overheard Kris on the phone with the Embassy Medical officer. I finally threw up several times over and felt so much better. Kris put me on the phone with Dr Manahan, the temporary Embassy Medical officer who asked about what was going on. I told her I thought it was either parasites or some sort of weird manifestation of a panic attack. She insisted I come in for an evaluation Thursday morning.

Embassy Medical Officer believes I have gallstones. I go in for an ultrasound and am told I need surgery.
-Following her evaluation Thursday morning she was thinking it could be gallstones. What?!?! Yea, I know ridiculous...what the heck is a gall anyway? The only galls I know of are found on plants.
-Friday morning I go in for an ultrasound, I almost blew this off because I knew nothing would show up and I had to fork over almost $200 up front for the test. All medical stuff is paid for in full up front here in Mexico. It takes forever to get reimbursed and the process is a pain in the butt.
-I ask the doctor doing the ultrasound if there are any gallstones and he nods his head, I ask if it's something that requires surgery and he laughs and says "do you like pain? If no, then you need surgery". The doctor gives me the ultrasound films to take back to the embassy and tells me he will be sending his report to Dr Manahan.
-I return home and take the kids downstairs to the playground to get them out of the house and give myself a chance to figure out how the heck we are going to get things done with an apartment full of boxes and a trip back to the US for surgery.












We prepare to return to the US for surgery
-I call Kris and tell him what is going on. Dr Manahan talks to him and tells him we need to plan for immediate surgery. I call my grandparents in St George, Utah to ask if we could come for a short visit for the surgery. Dr Manahan starts the process for a medical evacuation.

Dr Manahan gets the ultrasound report and isn’t happy with it. A visit with a local surgeon leads to emergency surgery.
-Kris calls and says Dr Manahan recommends I visit with a local surgeon for an evaluation and she doesn't think I'm going to make it back to the US for surgery. We go to the hospital where Dr Cervantes is waiting for us in the emergency room. I still thought we were just going to his office for an evaluation but we were told to go straight to the emergency room instead. I was given another ultrasound and told I needed surgery right away. I should pause to mention that ABC Santa Fe hospital is supposedly one of the best private hospitals in Mexico City, Hmmmmm….Scary.

What to do about milk for Bronwyn
-While nurses were sticking me for an IV, I made a frantic call to a friend here that is also nursing and asked if she could spare any milk and pump it for Bronwyn if what emergency milk I had in the fridge wasn't enough. I know that may turn some of you inside out but I didn't want to risk Bronwyn rejecting me if we put her on formula for an extended period and I'd do it for anyone else who was in the same situation. Fortunately I had enough stored and we didn't have to depend on her but I am so grateful to have friends who would be willing to help me take care of my daughter like that.

I get stuck in the MRI machine
-After the IV is set I'm taken for an MRI because of concern there were gallstones lodged in a duct or something. I got stuck in the MRI for a total of 45 minutes because the table wouldn't release so they could pull me out. I don’t think the technicians knew I could speak Spanish because they kept telling me “just a few more images” while in Spanish they were talking to each other about how to get the lever to release so the bed could slide on the track. Duh! It's not like I couldn't tell the imaging was over, that MRI machine was ancient and rocked my eardrums when it was going. That was fun! From this time forward I will insist on an Open MRI machine.

In the operating room
-MRI results show all ducts were clear and surgery could begin.
-I was prepped for surgery and wheeled into the operating room where 2 anesthestesiologists worked their magic. I actually love being knocked out and as many surgeries as I've had I make it a game to try and fight the drugs each time remembering the precise point that I go out. Before they give me the good stuff I tell the doctor I want to take my stones home (hey, I've got vials of preserved insects why not gallstones?)

Unfortunately this time around, my last memory was of the doctors yanking up my gown and me trying to say "hey now! Could you at least wait till I'm out?" Braedon's words echoing in my head "Don't look at my shame!" (what he says when he forgets to close the bathroom door and I walk by as he gets ready for a shower.)

Recovery:
Surgery takes a little over an hour, my gallbladder was in worse shape than expected and I definately would have never made it back to the US without a perforation or infection spreading. Dr Cervantes records the whole surgery and presents it to me on DVD. I've got enough stones to make a necklace he says! Har-dee-har-har. I am wheeled into my room around 10:45 pm where Kris is waiting. He leaves soon after to get back to the kids who are being watched by dear friends, the Thorleys.

Not one single nurse washes her hands...EWWWW!
I notice a disturbing trend while in the hospital. Not one single nurse washes her hands when they come in. I start telling them to wash their hands before they touch me but it must be a completely foreign concept because they huff and roll their eyes and seem to wash their hands grudgingly each time I tell them to. They could at least don gloves or something but I have to tell each one to wash their hands before they re-do my IV or otherwise take care of my incisions. I ask if there are gloves they could wear but there aren’t any. Am I a total germaphobe now or something? If the N1H1 flu goes nuts again and it spreads like mad in the hospitals here just think to yourself "Duh, morons".

GET ME A DAGGONE PUMP!
About 2 am, I ask one of the nurses for a breast pump since I'm nursing a 2 month old baby. I tell her I realize Bronwyn won't be able to have the milk but I'm engorged and in pain. She says she'll bring me pain medication, I insist I just need a pump. She ignores my request for the pump and just brings me pain medication for my IV. It takes me several hours to try to explain to these varmints that I need a pump in a major way and I have an extreme urge to start boxing their ears. I tell them to call the maternity ward and ask for a breast pump, I know they have the electronic medela ones there because one of the interns in the emergency room reserved one for me. At 6am they finally bring me.....a bike horn.



Ok, so if it isn’t a bike horn it must be a Swedish made precursor to male enhancement pills repackaged as a breast pump. And no, of course it doesn't work.

I also get these snazzy stockings to wear to prevent blood clots. Just call me FASHIONISTA!



I finally am able to call Kris in the morning to beg him to bring me my pump. The boys come to visit me first thing in the morning and I am released at 2 pm Saturday afternoon.

Leaving the Hospital is a whole other adventure....Socialized medicine at its finest.
In order for the emergency room to even see me, Kris had to make a deposit of $4000 up front. What's nice about private hospitals in countries where socialized medicine is the plan it that emergency rooms are pretty much empty and actually used for EMERGENCIES! Bad thing is, if you can't afford a private hospital you go to the local ones and get in line. According to my surgeon, I am lucky to be a US citizen and a diplomat because my condition would not have given me access to emergency surgery if I were a middle class Mexican. I am young and would have been expected to endure the pain and infection a while longer. Problem with this is with a punctured or torn gall channel, infection could spread rapidly leaving me much less time than I had with what I was already dealing with.


When we tried to leave we had to pay our bill in full which was several times the cost of the emergency room deposit. Not only that but in order for the guards to let you leave you have to go to several offices in the hospital and get their signatures and stamps that state you do not owe any balances. Once you have this paper you are permitted to leave. I'm only giving you an overview of the bureaucracy we had to go through and that was at a private hospital!

So now I sit here in bed blogging about the 4 holes in my stomach, you'd think the doctor could have at least done some liposuction or something while he was at it, or taken my appendix while he was in there because you know it's only a matter of time with my luck.

Kris and I have only been able to keep from going mad because of support from dear friends. Meals have been a huge help no to mention friends coming over to just hang out. Thankfully I think I'm one of those who recovers quickly which is good because I can't stand being incapacitated when there is work to be done.