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My gallbladder has sludge.
My doctor finally called. Did I tell you she left on maternity leave yesterday? I was fit to be tied this morning when I finally got through to her office and they told me that. What?!!! I’m just left here hanging with no news of what’s going on with my insides that hurt like they got caught in a bicycle chain?!! No follow up appointment? No nothing! Help!!!!! I can’t live like this!
Thankfully her office staff is on the ball. I told them how serious my problem was and the woman on the phone told me she would call the ultrasound place, get my report and then have another doctor call me back with my results. Then a few hours later my phone rang and it was my doctor calling from her home to give me my results. I could hear her kids in the background squabbling.
How cool is my doctor? She’s out to here pregnant (though it would have been nice to know she was leaving on maternity leave two days after I saw her), she takes care of me and THEN she calls me WHILE she is on her maternity leave AND her kids are going nuts in the background. I love her. She must know how terrible it is to feel crappy and have a baby at the same time.
So the results are this: My symptoms are not typical (I have no pain in my shoulders or upper quadrant of my body) but I do have sludge in my gallbladder. Not stones but sludge. This could be what is causing my problem or it could not. She is referring me to a surgeon so that they can access it better than she can. My doctor says that these surgeons are experts at this because they get people with theses types of symptoms all the time and they will not perform surgery unless they are 100% sure it will improve my life.
SURGERY! Yikes.
I hope it is the gallbladder though. I’m tired of this mystery illness. It would be nice to know I can avoid pain by just avoiding high fat foods. But even better I just want to yank that sucker out and be done with it. I hope I can have surgery and get better before Thanksgiving. Can you imagine not being able to eat fatty foods on THANKSGIVING DINNER!!! NO GRAVY! NO STUFFING! NO MARSHMALLOWS on top of the yams! (Wait, do marshmallows have fat in them? If not, I need some stat.) What am I going to do? I hope I can get in and get out quick and get better even quicker.
I’ve never been so sick before and been so starving. Usually if I’m going to be doing any up-chucking, the last thing I want to do is eat something but nooooooooo….I AM SO HUNGRY!!! I am literally starving to death. All I think about is what I could eat if I wasn’t sick. Cold pizza, cheesecake, meatballs, spaghetti, butternut squash with lots of butter, Reese’s peanut butter cups… man oh man am I hungry. And all I can eat is oatmeal. Out of desperation, I ask Toby what I can eat. He looks at me with a straight face and says, “Oat bran?” Great. Thanks a lot. Just what I wanted. I might as well just go eat some hay.
Toby doesn’t think it’s my gallbladder. He could be right too. It definitely is related to eating though. I get really sick about two hours after I eat anything. It just so happens that the sickest I got was from drinking a big ol’ glass of milk (but it tasted soooo good!), which is high in fat. I don’t know. I’m totally confused.
I’m just relieved that I’m seeing the surgeon tomorrow and things are moving. I’m actually feeling better on my new diet of oatmeal. Oatmeal is really boring though. I think I might try rice tonight.
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1:45 pm update
Forgive me for the typos… I’m just gonna jot something down quickly so as not to keep you in suspense. What would I do without you internet! You are like my own personal cheering crowd. Thank you.
I went to the ultrasound. The technician didn’t say she found anything. I didn’t press her though. She seemed very efficient in her job and reading the pictures she takes is not her job. She told me my doctor would contact me in 3-5 days. THREE to FIVE DAYS!!! Well. I don’t think so.
I’m going to call my doctor this afternoon, if she doesn’t call me first. Right now they are on their lunch break so I can’t pester them too much. And man is my doctor busy! The office only has two examining rooms. It’s just a cracker box of a doctor’s office and there were about twenty people in the waiting room!!! I had to wait to see her for over a half an hour yesterday. No worries. I could hear her in the next room talking to an overweight man about losing weight. She’s very kind and thorough so I don’t mind waiting because she spends just as much time with me. I love her.
I’m thinking since the ultrasound technician didn’t exclaim something like “Wow! Look at that tumor the size of a grapefruit!” or “Your gallbladder looks like it’s being attacked by asteroids!” that I don’t have anything wrong with my gallbladder, my spleen or my liver. I think those are all the things she checked. It was tricky deciphering the code on the monitor. “RK Liver” means what? Anyway. I think the ultrasound proved nothing. Which is good but a bummer, ’cause I just want to know what’s wrong with me already!!!
When I got home I was near faint from hunger so I was brave and made myself a bowl of oatmeal. Guess what! The oatmeal has stayed down! So far so good. It might be too soon to say though. It was 11 when I ate it. It’s 1:45 now. No major pain. Just burning and some achiness in my back that I can almost ignore. I’m even thinking I might have enough strength to go to the store since we are seriously out of groceries. Baby’s gotta have diapers too.
At 2 I’m calling my doctor and I HOPE she’s not too busy to give me some news.
Until then!
Edited to add: at 2pm left msg with dr. I guess no news is good news.
