Over the next year or so I would get a strange feeling in my stomach area. I would be fine and be walking somewhere and it would come on me. It wasn't a pain but it had the tendency to make me put my hand on my abdomen as I walked. There was no sense in trying to getting a doctor's appointment as I would never be able to describe it unless it was happening.
One day I was downtown near my doctor's office when it started. I wandered in and told the receptionist that I needed 30 seconds of his time. She, of course, didn't think that was possible. I told her I could only describe this while it was happening and that after that I could make whatever appointment was deemed necessary. The doctor saw me and ordered an ultrasound.
When I went for the ultrasound the technician spotted something and told me that she was going to roll me over and if it moved it was a gallstone. Well, I rolled over and she was awful quiet for a while before sighing and saying, "There it goes." So when I got back to the doctor's office and he told me about gallstones, I figured maybe I had passed one earlier and that was what that bad pain was all about. I asked if changing my diet would cure the problem and he said it would not. I then decided I would eat what I wanted because if he decided it needed to come out it would be better if that happened while I was young and healthy enough to survive an operation. I never had a bad pain again and if I got that strange feeling too often I would just cut back on bacon and fries for a while.
A few months ago I went to the ER again with a pain that had been moving to a different location every day for a week. It would have taken 3 weeks just to see my own doctor (things have changed over the years, eh). I explained the pains and mentioned the gallstone. The ER doctor didn't think it was that. She tested me for all kinds of things. I had blood and urine samples taken, a chest x-ray, and some good poking. The ER doctor suggested that I come back the next day for an ultrasound. Before that test, I warned the technician that she would find a big gallstone in there. I knew about it but it had never bothered me in the past 40 years. The ultrasound showed the thing was now the size of a golf ball! I found out later the doctor was actually looking for kidney stones. I don't have those.
The doctor asked why, since I knew I had a large gallstone, I still had it. Simple question. The simple answer was that nobody had ever suggested that I have it taken out. It has never bothered me. In fact, I had given my current doctor the blast for not checking my gallbladder during my yearly routine checkups (when we had such things) and she said, "Well, you don't have a gallbladder problem." I informed her then that I'd had gallstones for years. She seemed genuinely surprised when she got a report about the size of it. Suddenly it seemed the doctors thought it was best to get rid of the thing. I said again that it had never bothered me in the past 40 years. But they kind of made a point of stressing that if it did decide to do something it would be really bad. The next thing I knew I was scheduled for surgery......within a month, if you can believe that!
So this week, just one month after meeting the surgeon, I gave up my gallbladder. I have heard of others getting to see the gallstones that were taken out of them, and some even kept them. I never saw mine. Maybe I should have asked for it. After 40 years of being part of me, it was kind of like a pet rock.
