Incisional Hernia Surgery - The Gallbladder Removal Surgery

It was February, 2011 and we were off to Scotland again. Six months previously, when we had returned from Scotland, after tricia's complex incisional hernia repaired, we could never have imagined that we would be on our way back up there again. At least, not so soon!

Everything had gone so, so well with the hernia repair. At long last, Tricia was looking and feeling the way that she had done, 2 years previously, and we both thought that life was about to take a turn for the better when, WHAM!

WHAM! was on January 11th, 2011, when severe abdominal pain started again and we both thought that the pancreatitis had flared up.

In a sense, it had.

The pancreas is affected by the gallbladder (amongst other things) and the fact that she had a 2cm stone lodged in the common bile duct was having an adverse effect on the pancreas and causing symptoms that felt like pancreatitis.

As you will have read in the other articles I have written, the surgeon locally decided that the stone needed to be removed by cholecystectomy. This is normally performed laparascopically (keyhole surgery) but, due to the fact that Tricia had only recently undergone complex hernia repair surgery, he was reluctant to even consider the procedure without 'opening her up'.

So, once again, we turned to the wonderful surgeon in Edinburgh, Andrew De Beaux.

We travelled up to edinburgh, by train, in early February, blissfully unaware that it was six nations weekend and that Wales would be travelling up to Edinburgh also for the fixture against Scotland, at Murrayfield!

The journey went smoothly until we reached Crewe, whereupon the train was invading with what seemed like the entire rugby supporting contingent of Wales!

In reality, there were probably a hundred or so but, there were enough of them to totally overwhelm the 4 carriages that comprised the train to Edinburgh!

Nevertheless, it has to be said that they were wonderful and the certainly provided us with continuous entertainment for the remainder of the journey, with their singing, jokes and generally excellent humour (none of which was in any way crude or offensive).

Once in Edinburgh, we saw Andrew once more and he agreed that he would undertake the procedure. At that stage he was unsure how it would go and what method he would use. He explained the risks and complications, in view of his own recent surgery and explained that he may be able to work laparascopically and get around the meshing etc. but that it all depended on 'how things had settled down, inside' and whether or not there had been much movement of organs.

We were both well aware that, if his path to the gallbladder was not clear, then he may have to remove it by open surgery but we felt that he was, undoubtedly, the best person for the job.

And so it was that we travelled back again on February 20th, to another little cottage we had rented. This time a wee bit nearer to Edinburgh and on the following Wednesday, Andrew once again worked on Tricia's problem.

It took him about 3 hours but he was able to perform the procedure laparascopically! He really is a genius!

He had to tinker a little with the meshing and he encountered a few difficulties along the way, although nothing that he couldn't overcome and, 2 days later, Tricia was discharged.

We travelled back to England that Sunday, which was really a couple of days sooner than was ideal, but, fortunately, Tricia fell asleep about 20 minutes into our journey and woke up 5 hours later, about 20 minutes from home!

It took her another couple of weeks to fully recover and get over the discomfort.

Normally this is just a few days but remember, in Tricia's case, she had a very complicated cholecystectomy procedure only a few months after major surgery to repair her complex incisioanl hernia, so it was hardly surprising that she took a while longer than is normal, to recover.

Since then, she has had no problems whatsoever with either the hernia repair or the gallbladder repair. No ill effects, no side effects and no reactions.

As you would expect, though, the story doesn't end there.

The next 2 issues to dealt with are the pancreatitis and the legal case, both of which I will write about in separate hubs.