Through my what?!

When I had my gallbladder removed three and a half years ago, no one asked me, “So, would you like us to suck that out of your vagina?” And thank goodness they didn’t, because I probably would have fainted right there in the doctor’s office and who knows what they would have stuffed up my orifices to revive me?

At the end of March, doctors removed a 66-year-old woman’s gallbladder via her vagina. The procedure avoids abdominal scarring and is supposed to be “less invasive,” though I don’t know what could be more invasive than sticking something up there. It’s part of a developing surgical technique called “natural orifice surgery.” They’ve also been able to remove a man’s appendix via his mouth. Take a minute to visualize that and tell me when you get back from vomiting in the restroom. You back? Okay. It reminds me of the old Egyptian mummification process where they’d remove a corpse’s brains through its nose, only now we can do it on living people without making them candidates for mummification.

Natural orifice surgery is supposed to cause less pain, but it seems unnecessary to me in regards to gallbladder surgery. I was able to walk out of the hospital the afternoon of my laparoscopic procedure done via a camera and several small cuts to my belly. I healed very quickly and the pain at its worst was only as bad as menstrual cramps. I still have four little scars on my abdomen, but they have faded nicely in the past years and they blend in among all the faded stretch marks, or as I call them my “fat scars.” Some people pierce their bodies or get tattoos, but I have a fascinating arrangement of abstract scar art on my belly. It’s kind of pretty, actually, if you view it without judgment or pre-conceived notions of beauty. But, if you’re not into that, I suppose I can understand why you’d opt for sticking a camera up your hoo-ha, which is sentence I thought I’d never type.