[Trombone-l] gallbladder surgery (cholecystectomy) recovery?

[Denny Seifried]

List Members,

About 17 months ago, I had two hernias repaired, one was an umbilical hernia 
and the other was a ventral hernia, very close, but slightly above and to 
the right of the umbilical hernia. My surgeon, who is a parent of one of my 
private trombone students, did my operation. He chose to make an incision 
about 6 inches in length from my navel, upwards, and fixed both hernias with 
one patch of surgical mesh.

Now for the first bad-news. He highly recommend I lay-off the bass trombone 
for at least 30, full-days, or he would be seeing me for a second surgery. I 
took his word, to-the-max. I might add, about half-way through week four, I 
did a little tuba mouthpiece buzzing and bass trombone mouthpiece buzzing, 
as in another 3 weeks I had to do a two-week run of Beauty and the Beast 
doubling bass bone & tuba. I never had problem-one, no pain from my repaired 
area, until about two months ago.

Upon further investigation I noticed another ventral hernia, right near 
where my patch ended. I could push it back in, but it would not stay, and 
came right back out. It did not bother me much, playing-wise, unless I was 
standing for around 45 minutes. I would feel it, but never while seated.

I scheduled an appointment with my surgeon and he stated this one could be 
fixed with a laparoscopic instruments. Three, small holes, two for the 
scopes and one for the tools and surgical mesh. This will be the ideal 
situation he stated. I have lost about 40 pounds this past year and he 
stated the more I shed, the better he can work inside of me. If things do 
not work, once he is "inside"---it will be back to conventional surgery.

With laparoscopic techniques----I will be off about 10 days, according to 
him. He can not use the surgical center, where my first surgery was done and 
I will need to go to a local hospital OR. It is still same-day, even though 
I will have another "general" to put me under.

Do you happen to be a member of The Trombone Forum? 
(http://tromboneforum.org)

We have a medical topic area staffed by Dr. Galen McQuarrie MD, who is an 
internist/trombonist, who could really give you some better answers, as I am 
talking hernia and you are talking gall bladder. I am sure, medically, there 
is a pretty sizable difference.

Denny Seifried
Bass Trombone-Springfield (OH) Symphony & Dayton Jazz Orchestra
Adjunct Trombone-Wittenberg Univ. Dept. of Music
Forum Moderator-The Trombone Forum (http://tromboneforum.org)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Monique Buzzarté" <monique at buzzarte.org>
To: <trombone-l at samford.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 7:14 PM
Subject: [Trombone-l] gallbladder surgery (cholecystectomy) recovery?


Has anyone on the list had their gallbladder removed?  What's the
recovery process like in terms of when professional playing is possible
again?

One surgeon I spoke with said that the recovery time before playing
would be 10-12 weeks (risk of hernias if playing before the muscles had
completely healed; in this scenario a laparoscopic procedure
is worse than a large abdominal incision since the intestine can
slip out with internal abdominal pressure but not back in as easily
through the smaller opening.  Another surgeon said that I could
play the next day "if I felt like it."   (Although that's if it was
laparoscopic of course - the open procedure is major abdominal
surgery with a 4-7 inch incision (it's not possible to know beforehand
which might be done.)

I've checked the archives, there aren't very many
references there to cholecystectomy or other
abdominal surgery in terms of what's realistic
for a trombonist to expect afterwards.

In my case, the docs aren't even sure it *is* the gallbladder that's
the culprit.  It could be an intermittent internal hernia (sometimes
there is a lump on my left side).  Or far less likely, some kind of
a periodic intussusception.   Or, possibly, a VERY atypical presentation
of gallbladder disease, cholecystitis/cholelithiasis.


Thanks,
Monique

-- 
***************************
Monique Buzzarté
monique at buzzarte.org
http://www.buzzarte.org
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