Gallbladder Ups and Downs

I have written about my battle with high blood pressure and my fight with diabetes. Well now I come to you about my gall bladder. I realize now that it all began when my doctor changed my blood pressure medicine. I thought that the new medicine was making me have terrible abdominal pain with horrible bloating issues. So I called the doctor's office and they changed my medicine. And that didn't help, so they changed it again. At that time I felt a little relief and assumed my body would just adjust.

After another week of battling the terrible pain by laying in front of a space heater, my belly pointed right at it, and taking three hot shabaths (sitting in the bathtub with the shower beating down on you while it fills with water) a day there was no relief in sight. Of course on a Friday night right before bedtime it came to a head. I could not stop the pain. My husband took me to the emergency room. I had pancreatitis caused form gall stones. It took them a while to check me with a sonogram because surely it was alcohol induced. My husband and I had to tell them over and over, no I do not drink, no I haven't had alcohol in about 14 years (*note the age of my son). Because it was the weekend the hospital did not have a surgeon on hand to handle the issue. They did give me medicines that alleviated the pain and kept me for two nights on a liquid diet. Oh they also threw me into a hugh blood sugar low but that's a story for another day.

The following Tuesday I went to see my primary doctor who didn't seem to think it was a big deal and that we would get to it eventually. By the way, my mother and grandmother both had their's removed. Anyhow, he was bound and determined we had to get my blood pressure down first. Sure okay makes sense. And we did. But I progressively kept getting worse and worse and worse. I could only find relief again with hot shabaths, a space heater, and I figured out sitting in criss-cross-applesauce position. At my wits end waiting for a referral from my doctor to the correct surgeon took over a week. Scheduling the consultation another few days. showing up for my consultation and waiting for 2 hours only to be rescheduled for the following week for the consultation, and lastly being scheduled another week out for my surgery.

Surgery morning arrives, 7:00 am, I don't get up before 8:00, but so be it. I manage to drift in and out
of sleep so that I don't send myself into a panic attack. The anesthesiologist informs me that he doesn't want to perform the surgery to remove my gall bladder because my blood sugar is too high and I should wait until I have it under control. Now hold on there budd, I am in constant discomfort, feeling like I am 9 months pregnant and ready to pop, and you want me to wait. Don't think so. I calmly explain to him that I can not work on my blood sugars nor my blood pressure until they have taken care of this issue, so give me some insulin and let's get this done. Luckily he agreed.

Four little incisions and four days later my gallbladder is gone. I imagine it as this lump of dark yellow and greens that feels like clay sitting in a specimen jar somewhere. The removal of my gallbladder did successfully take away the unbearable pressure on my upper belly. Though it has not stopped my horrible bloating, fatigue, and feeling like my stomach is an extra appendage. I suspect that I may be intolerant to gluten...