Finally!

After almost 2 months of waiting, I finally got to see a General Surgeon Monday. PCN finally came through for me! Frighteningly, I couldn't get an appointment with a surgeon until PCN set it up for me. What do people with no insurance do? I guess they wait until something is life-threatening and go to the ER. I tried that, but the ER didn't think my problem was life threatening. My gall bladder problem certainly is quality of life threatening, but I guess that doesn't count in the ER.

I'm scheduled to get my gall bladder removed on Tuesday July 19. I am happy, happy, happy! Maybe right after the surgery I won't be, but in the long run I'm positive I will be. Maybe I'll even get to eat normal food again. Wouldn't that be awesome?!

In any case, once I recover I'm sure I won't be awake all hours of the night in so much pain I wish I could die. And that's a very, very good thing. Who knew a stone-filled gall bladder could be such a trouble maker?

Dr. Nolan told me gall bladder cleanses are a scary thought for a surgeon. "I'm sure lots of people do cleanses without any problem, but surgeons see the cleanses that go wrong. We see the people that end up in the ER with a stone stuck in their bile duct - and that can cause inflammation, jaundice or worse."

So, no, I won't be doing another gall bladder/liver cleanse. Not that kind, at least. If I do any, I'll be doing the more gentle kind, like Flor-essence. I'm hoping I get to see my stones before they get tossed. My sister Becky says they won't let you keep them because they're a bio-hazard. She didn't get to see her gall stones, but Dad did. Maybe I'll have David take a camera so he can take a picture of them if I'm too out of it to look at them. I want to see the little critters that have caused me so much pain...

When I did the cleanse in April I got some hard stones about the size of a pea that looked like little chunks of cement. I wonder how big my biggest stone is? Yeah, this is kind of gross, isn't it?