Sticks and stones, pins and needles
5/17/2012
Dress & waistcoat - YDE
Belt - mom's
Bag - The Lot
Platforms - vintage
In the early hours of the morning on 1 May, I woke up from unbearable pain in my upper abdomen. After hours of suffering through the night and being sick, I felt almost as if I couldn't breathe. I had sharp, tight pain in the entire right side of my torso expanding to my back. My chest ached, I didn't want to talk and I felt like I was about to collapse from pain. My family has a history of heart problems so my mother drove me to an emergency room. I can barely remember talking to the nurses and doctors but I do recall that they had trouble finding my veins since I was dehydrated so I was poked with needles on both of my arms until I began twitching as the fluid in the IV started to enter my bloodstream. Pretty much felt like I was Harry Goldfarb, the bruises afterwards wouldn't argue.
I slept a few hours and then went in for an ultrasound. As it turns out I had suffered a gallstone attack which has been said by some to be more painful than childbirth. Unfortunately I had a large gallstone in the neck of my gallbladder so they had to remove the entire organ. Apparently I was lucky to have the attack instead of having stones displaced into my main bile ducts. Men and women at every age face gallstone complications and end up in ICU and in emergency surgery. So this whole thing really sucked. The last thing I felt like was being poked with more needles and having to stay in the hospital overnight. After I was diagnosed with gallstones I realized that I have been having similar mild attacks (mistaken food poisoning) for a while and wrote it off. If you experience crippling pains in your right side as well as bloating and nausea, please get it checked out as soon as possible! Go for ultrasounds, one doctor told me they sometimes miss stones on X-rays. It turns out that my 17mm stone (bigger than a whisper/malteser sheesh!) has probably been growing in my gallbladder for about a decade. I have finally somewhat recovered from my operation, so far so good. If I didn't remove the organ, I would have only had more attacks or liver and pancreas problems so it's just one of those things you have to do.
One minute you're enjoying a lovely long weekend by a fireplace and the next you're in the emergency room! Life is too short so enjoy the hell out of it.
