The latest in my seemingly endless series of health issues seems to be basically done. Here’s what happened. I woke up Monday morning feeling pretty nauseous but forced myself to eat a normal breakfast. By the time I got to work I was starting to have a bit of a stomach ache but nothing serious. I had to give a brief presentation at our staff meeting and went to get coffee before the meeting. As I started the presentation my stomach was starting to really hurt. After about halfway through I stopped sipping the coffee because I thought maybe it was causing the problem. I soldiered through the presentation but basically couldn’t wait for it to end, by the end of the meeting my stomach was absolutely killing me. I left work shortly after this.

By the time I got home, I was in serious serious pain. I went into system shutdown, basically collapsing on my couch. I couldn’t really sleep but I also wasn’t fully conscious. By the evening I was just a mess, tossing and turning, feverish, stomach felt like I had been in a boxing match and someone had been beating on it bigtime. I spent the night this way. By the time dawn came around most of the pain had moved to my upper right side, now it felt like someone had been giving me left hooks to the body – twinges of sharp pain and a constant dull soreness. At this point I decided I needed to see a doctor – up until this point I had figured maybe I had food poisoning or something, but I started to suspect appendicitis and you can die quickly from that. By 11 AM I was at the docs and within an hour of that I was at Mercy Hospital for blood tests and xrays. There was also supposed to be an ultrasound test but there were scheduling snafus. By this point I was getting scared. The doctor had warned me I might be sent off to surgery immediately based on the xrays and that it could be any number of things, including gall bladder, pancreas, or liver problems. He was mostly suspecting gall bladder. The pancreas one was the scariest, people mostly die from that.

The xrays were inconclusive – my gall bladder might or might not be inflamed, but the blood tests were conclusive – a very high white blood cell count and a high (Bileac acid? some sort of bile secretion) count told the doctor that my body was fighting off some sort of internal issue with my gall bladder. Since I was not vomiting and since by the afternoon the pain and nausea were receding somewhat, the doctor sent me home after scheduling an early AM ultrasound appointment. Again he warned me I might be sent off to surgery in the morning so this time I arrived prepared, with books and such.

The person who performs the ultrasound is not the person who actually reads the results, but once she was done she concluded I had no active gall stones and sent me home. The doctor called earlier today and told me that my bile (duct? Connector valve? something) and some other portion of that section of my internal organs were both inflamed, and what that told him is that almost certainly I had a gall stone or stones (most likely 1) and that I succesfully passed it. Now all that remains is for me to recuperate – there is still residual soreness that makes it uncomfortable for me to walk around, and I am still nauseous though I can eat again.

So thats pretty much it. I have to go back to the doctor’s on Friday morning for blood tests again to see if the high white blood cell and bile stuff counts are back to normal. If they’re not I am not sure what happens next, but I am feeling somewhat confident that I am on the mend, the pain is greatly reduced, it’s down to background discomfort at this point.

Can you believe how much health crap I have had to go through in the past year? I have one observation to make too – I spent a lot of time wandering around the hospital the past 2 days, and I can say this: The hospital is full of fat patients. By far the predominant body type was the ‘very to really overweight’. Get out and exercise man, you do NOT want to be spending time in these places, they are horrendous.