Surgeon: You have a stone of three centimeters in your gallbladder.

Me: The size of a golf ball? Well, I’ve always been an overachiever.

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Me: How are you going to get a golf ball through my belly button? You’ll disfigure me!

Surgeon: I’ll have to crush the stone to make it fit.

Me: Crush it? But my friends want to see it. One of them calls it my ‘pearl’.

Surgeon: They don’t allow people to take the stones home anymore.

Me: Well, that’s a shame. I was thinking of making mine into a pendant.

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Me: So are you a general surgeon?

Surgeon: Yes.

Me: Like Meredith Grey?

Surgeon: I’ve heard of her. She’s on some show?

Me: Yeah, she’s a rock star surgeon.

Surgeon: I bet she does more than fix hernias and remove gallbladders.

Me: Yeah, once she removed something from a guy that turned out to be his twin. He had absorbed it while they were in the womb. It was really gross.

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Pre-Op Nurse: Oh, I see you are getting your gallbladder removed by Dr. Talbot (name changed to protect the innocent). The ladies are always delighted when he comes to do surgeries.

Me: I bet! He’s the best looking surgeon I’ve ever seen in my life.

Pre-Op Nurse: Yeah, they banned me from the operating room when he’s here. *Sigh*

My husband: Do I need to be here for this?

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Nurse: I’m going to give you an anti-clotting agent. This is going to pinch a bit then you’ll feel the injection going into your buttock.

Me: Yeah, that’s what you guys always say when you know it is going to feel like a knife wound just before molten metal is injected into your ass.

Nurse: All done.

Me: Wait. What?

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Anesthesiologist: It says here that anesthetic gives you nausea after surgery.

Me: That’s an understatement. Last time I vomited AND peed at the same time every 20 minutes for hours.

Anesthesiologist: Okay, we’ll have a good cocktail made up for you. Normally we give three anti-nauseates, but I can give you four.

Me: Give me ten.

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OR Nurse: Your name is unusual. Where is it from?

Me: I’m Finnish.

Anesthesiologist: They gave us Nokia phones.

Me: And saunas and hockey players and Angry Birds.

OR Nurse: Angry Birds, really?

Me: Yes, how do people not know this?

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Nurse 1: Honey, you need to wake up.

Me: zzzzzz

Nurse 1: We’re going to put your yoga pants on you now.

Me: zzzzzz

Two nurses put my yoga pants on then shake me gently.

Nurse 1: You need to get up from the gurney into the reclining chair now.

Nurse 2: You can do this. Just swing your legs over the edge… there you go. We’ll get you sitting up and… there… that wasn’t so bad.

Me: I hate you people.

Nurse 2: We know you do.

Nurse 1: She did that without opening her eyes once.

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Me: Water? I need water.

Nurse 1: Here you go. I’ve brought you some crackers too.

I finish the water and crackers. She brings me more. I finish them. Cookies too.

Nurse 2: Has she opened her eyes yet?

Nurse 1: Not even when she was eating.

Me: zzzzzz

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Afterword

I never did puke. The anesthesiologist did a great job. I did have some nausea after the nurses made me get up from the gurney, but a quick injection into my IV made that and consciousness go away.

The pain was excruciating for the next two days after surgery. Tylenol 3s dulled the pain but still best to avoid sneezing if possible.

I lost 8 pounds in two weeks, but I would not recommend gallbladder surgery as a means to weight loss.