 | edt4 (99)
10/16/2007 |  About 10 years ago, I had a dull but persistent ache in my side that finally compelled me to see my doctor. A word about this doctor-- I had been seeing him since the age of 15, and liked and trusted him, but he was a character. An earthy Italian-American from Queens with a salty tongue and little in the way of a bedside manner, he gave me a quick examination and proclaimed, "Your gall bladder has to come out." I was stunned; I wasn't even sure what a gall bladder was, but I associated its removal with old, sickly people, and I was far from that. Although I had indulged in more than my share of alcohol and illicit substances during my lifetime, and occasionally ate like King Henry VII at a banquet, I was in pretty good health, relatively speaking-- I worked out, jogged, didn't smoke, etc. I went to have the requisite tests performed with a heavy heart, because I'm not real comfortable with the idea of surgery. I had minor surgery performed during the 1980's and nearly bled to death-- although I obviously survived, I was anemic for over a year, and the fear of that experience has stayed with me over the years. The medical technician had me undress, and kept passing some sort of device that allowed her to see my internal workings over my abdomen and side, muttering, "I don't see anything. I'm sorry, but I just don't see anything." Finally, she let me go, a bit chagrined but relieved. When I returned to my doctor for a follow-up visit, he gave me another cursory examination and said, "It's your ribs. You have bruised ribs." When I asked him how I might have bruised them (I couldn't remember hitting them in any way), he replied testily, "How in the f**k do I know how you bruised them? They're bruised, ok?" My irritation was relieved somewhat by the fact that I wasn't going to be operated on, that my gall bladder was sound and healthy (for the time being, at least), and the Vicodin script the doctor wrote out for me.
(3 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | uncnc08 (43)
10/04/2007 | A gall bladder attack or inflamation of it,is agony! Im 22 barely 100 pounds,and all of a sudden last fall I started having those so called "attacks" at first I thought it was indigestion.Even went to the ER and they said I had an the begginings of an ulcer. Wrong,every time I had eaten steak or beef ,I would always wake up in the middle of the night.I can't explain how it feels,mine felt like someone had punched me in the stomach and i could not breath,then In june I went to another doctorand he took a sonogram and found stones and they removed it.now I can eat what I want!
(7 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
 | magellan (153)
10/04/2007 | There have been various times in my life that I've been in a lot of pain. I was jumped by a gang in West Philly. I've had my eye blackened 5 or 6 times playing hoops. I've had my fingers dislocated, and my nose chipped. I've stubbed my toe.
But never have I experienced the pain of an inflamed gall bladder. It was blazing bonfire inferno in my stomach.
Because the profile of a bad gall bladder is (fat, female, forty), and I'm not that - it took three times to the emergency room before the doctors thought to check my gall bladder.
The worst part was the reaction of my friends and family - "you went to the emergency room with a stomach ache?" (unsaid was, "suck it up you wuss.") In fact, the last time it happened I was so embarrassed about it that I didn't even wake up my wife, and drove myself hunched over the wheel to the ER, running lights and groaning all the way.
Once in the ER, I was one of those crazy people you see screaming for morphine.
I can't describe how much it hurt.
So it turns out, you don't need your gall bladder at all. Once you take it out, other organs take over its function.
So they took it out, now I'm fine, and I can eat a leather suitcase without feeling the worse for wear.
So I say - why the hell is it in there in the first place?
(6 voted this helpful, 1 funny and 0 agree) |
