Mine was a nightmare.
After a few years of intermittent pain that felt like horrible indigestion/heartburn it suddenly got much worse. Off to the doctors, then hospital, where they eventually informed me it was a gallstone . . . that they were wary of going in for it due to it being so close to the liver.
Carted off to a bigger hospital, where they took a week to fit a stent. On the evening before I was due to be discharged I collapsed in the toilet, big panic situation followed by examination where they discovered that, when fitting the stent, they'd caught a blood vessel and I was bleeding internally. They put a clip on that and kept me in a further week for observation, filling me up with blood and antibiotics.
Eventually allowed home a few days later and all was well for a week, when I suddenly developed excruciating pain in the lower right abdomen. Doctors to Hospital again, scans done but they couldn't find the problem. Carted off back to the larger hospital (again) where they pumped me full of painkillers etc and decided to 'go in' for a look.
I couldn't lay on the operating bed in the right position, the agony was intense. The surgeon decided something was very wrong and sent me for further scans, and they found my gallbladder had ruptured because the stent had moved, causing pressure build up.
So there I am in a hospital bed for another week, tubes putting painkiller and antibiotics in, tubes draining all the bad stuff out, and another stent fitted.
Allowed home but still with drain tubes fitted and check ups by district nurse . . . exciting stuff. A week later called back in to have the drains removed and told would be contacted for the op to remove the gallbladder.
About 6 weeks later they called me in for the op, told me it could be open surgery due to the complications. I woke up later with more tubes running in & out and learnt it was 2 hours of keyhole surgery . . and yet another stent in there.
Thankfully all went well after that, apart from a 'wasted' trip to have the stent removed which, like the others, had decided to bugger off to places unknown without their help.
I must state that I appear to be one of the unlucky 1% (probably) that have complications (the stone being very close to the liver, stent moving etc), and everyone else I've spoken to say they were in & out in a day or two . . . 'sigh'
With luck like that I don't do the lottery anymore
