Terrified of Gallbladder Surgery

Hi I'm six weeks post surgery and I promise you won't feel a thing. Apparently I was under for about an hour and a half. Mine too was laporoscopic and very straightforward. The nurses were lovely and I remember walking to the room which I assume was where they do the anaesthetic and then laid down. The doctors were talking to me and that was it. I then woke up in the recovery room. Before your op the anaesthetist will come and speak to you so any concerns you have don't Ben afraid to ask. Remember they do hundreds of ops every day. Good luck and just take it easy afterwards.  Believe me it's the best thing I ever did. Thank god no more nasty gallstone attacks. Hope this helps x

The surgery itself took approx 45 minutes for me. All inclusive 80 mins from going to theatre to being back in the day ward. I had no ill effects no sore throat or feeling sick anesthesia these days really is very good.

Best Wishes

I had mine out last year and I too was terrified of the general anaesthetic. I told the anaesthetist how scared I was and he was great. He explained everything and reassured me. I can’t remember how long I was in but it was pretty straightforward and I was able to ring my family once I was back in my room. Good luck, I’m sure it will be fine x

Was in the anaesthetic room at 9am and woke up in recovery about 12.15. So was under longer than normal. It’s a weird feeling trying to fight the sleepiness.

In the anaesthetic room they make you lie down on the bed and connect ecg leads to you and have a saturation probe on your finger and a blood pressure cuff on your arm. My heart rate is always really high at this point with nerves (even though I’m a nurse I’m still a nervous wreck).

The anaesthetist puts a cannula in your hand and they usually put one of the masks on your face just before they start to inject the anaesthetic so your lungs are full of oxygen. They’re monitoring you the whole time and keep you topped up with anaesthetic. Don’t worry about not waking up. There’s reversal drugs for the anaesthetic so if they were worried for any reason they can use them. They also give you pain relief and anti sickness medicines through your cannula too. Yes there are risks but it’s normally higher in emergency situations with very sick people, people with health conditions that make them riskier and also elderly people. At pre-assessment they’ll have checked all this. The anaesthetist comes to see you before the surgery too so they can always give you a light sedative beforehand to calm you down a bit. Good luck with the op 😘 xx

Nola.

ile tell you a little story ok.

see my name here ?

that name comes from my fear of general !

im 53 years old and when I was 15 I went under for an emergency opp on a broken jaw in 5 places and some , I was not scared at all , however I died twice from the general 11 seconds and 9 seconds.

i was so ill I couldn’t even get out of the hospital bed for near 2 weeks , I’ve been terrified beyond belief of general ever since to the point ide rather die than have it ,

6 months ago I had my gangrenous gallbladder removed after refusing the surgery for 3 years to the point I had hours to live , this was all due to the of the general only , ptsd bad.

i said to the surgeon what’s the odds of me not waking from the general , he said the odds of you die from your diseased gangrenous puss filled gallbladder in the next 6 hours is about a Illinois to one you will die.

the odds of you die from the general anaesthetic is about a million to one you will not !

i said where do I sign, lol.

i went under ten mins later believe in this was the end for me , really one million per cent convinced this it’s it I’m gone for sure !!

i cannot begin to tell you how scared I was .

i woke up 1 hour 20 mins later singing 🎤 lol and walked to my room 2o mins later no dizziness no sickness no headache no nothing I felt great actually and extremely thankful to my surgeon and anaesthetist that I’m still alive to tell you !!

yes it used to be pretty dangerous I agree , but this is a true story and I assure you it’s come a long long long way is is so very safe nowadays , 

infact the fear you are feeling is much more likely to harm you than the general is nowadays !!

and I smoke 40 a day !!

im not going to say don’t worry about because you are clearly wired like I am and saying don’t worry it will be fine isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to you or your fears .

but I will say this to you .

you know you are sick 

you know you have to have it out to get better 

so you need to be that brave coward that I was to achieve this .

go be a brave coward and I think it likely that like me now ide never be a coward to general anaesthetic ever again.

goid luck and report back my brave coward I’m already so proud of you ..