We left Austin 6 days ago for a month in the Pacific Northwest. Landed in Portland, rented a car, and spent 3 wonderful days with granddaughter Valentina. We had planned more visits with friends, hiking in Olympic National Park, much-longed-for-time in Vancouver, a cruise to Alaska, and a return through Idaho and Montana.
However, I am writing from the hospital in WA where I had emergency surgery Sunday. I had been unable to keep food down for a couple of days and was feeling sick. I went to a UW urgent care clinic. The nurse practitioner who saw me there sent me immediately to the hospital and undoubtedly saved my life.
In the ER I had a CAT Scan, and the ER doc said I had a very rare situation. A gall stone had worked its way through the wall into my small intestine, formed a fistula, and I had a complete bowel blockage. They called the surgeon and woke him up, and he said he wanted to operate in 20 minutes, as I might not survive if we waited 2 hours. It was very dramatic. We were going hiking on Hurricane Ridge the next day, and he said I wouldn’t have made it if it had happened there or on the cruise ship.
However, he had performed 2 such surgeries before and I felt confident in him. Dempsey was so exhausted I had talked him into going to the hotel to sleep and he didn’t even know until the next day – everything happened so fast, and I wasn’t worried about the outcome. I was in a lot of pain by then, but I felt confident the surgery would be successful.
I’m now feeling much better – lots of good drugs and pain control, and they gave me some soup today. I’ll be in the hospital 4 or 5 days, then I have to stay here 2 weeks for physical therapy and having staples removed.
Sadly, the vacation is kaput. But the important thing is I am apparently going to be fine going forward, with no expected negative outcome.
I don’t know why this happened as it did, but I do know I’ve been in excellent hands medically and cosmically. I am enormously grateful.