Saturday, June 1, 2019

My Pet Rock

About forty years ago my hubby scooped me up off the bathroom floor, deposited the kids at a  neighbour's and took me to the Emergency Room at a nearby hospital. All I can tell you about that was that the pain that put me on that floor was worse than childbirth but by the time we got to the hospital it had subsided. Luckily the doctor on call was someone who knew us and after giving me a quick check over, the two men had a little chat about mundane things while he kept one eye on me. He ended up saying there was a strange bug going around and that I probably had that. I was sent home with orders from the doctor for my hubby to administer some TLC.

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.