Cholecystectomy | No More Gallbladder For Kristina...

A little over nine years after having my own, my sister had a cholecystectomy (The surgical removal of the gallbladder) yesterday and like me, she had it done laparoscopically (A surgical technique in which operations are performed far from their location through small incisions elsewhere in the body) -- Which is basically how everyone has it done nowadays, unless the surgeon runs into a problem and then you end up getting sliced open.

For those of you that are unaware of what causes gallbladder problems, they are "usually caused by the presence of gallstones which are small hard masses consisting primarily of cholesterol and bile salts that form in the gallbladder or in the bile duct. And can block the flow of bile out of the gallbladder, causing it to swell and resulting in sharp abdominal pain, vomiting, indigestion and, occasionally, fever" according to the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons' site.

Both my sister and I suffered from the sharp abdominal pains, which were horrific and landed us each in an emergency room. But unlike me, my sister did not have an inflamed gallbladder so she got to schedule her surgery (Which she scheduled around a trip to Cancun that she went on with her boyfriend last week). While I ended up having emergency surgery two days after my twenty-first birthday. But yeah...

So because she had the surgery yesterday, I took the day off and spent almost all of it with her and our parents in the hospital (Where I cracked very inappropriate jokes to make her laugh because I could tell that she was super nervous) and at their house once she was discharged.

In terms of the actual surgical procedure, it went extremely well. She had no complications and according to both the surgeon and anesthesiologist "It was a textbook case that couldn't have gone any better..." and because of that she was as in and out of the hospital as quickly as one could be after having an organ removed. And she is currently at home relaxing and recovering.

So that is how I spent my Thursday. I Snapchatted throughout the course of the time we were at the hospital but I forgot to save the video or I would have shared it with all of you because it was funny. Oh well...

Are any of you members of the gallbladderless club? Lemme know.