an update

minus one gallbladder, plus some unexplained pain

I can’t tell you exactly when everything started, I just know that sometime in the past year I stopped enjoying eating. I couldn’t finish a meal. Everything made me feel sick to my stomach. Food - my greatest enjoyment in life - became my enemy. I thought maybe it was a post-covid thing; I had tested positive back in December and although I was largely without symptoms, I thought this could still be a residual effect. So I just waited for it to go away.

Soon my inability to enjoy a meal became accompanied by pain in my abdomen, and I decided it was time to see my doctor about. I was at a point where I couldn’t hold down any food at all, it would all regurgitate back in multiple ways. My doctor sent me for a cat scan, which didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. He prescribed some anti-nausea pills and told me to report back to him if the pain got worse, or go to the ER if it was the weekend.

And that’s how I ended up in the ER on July 10th. The pain was constant instead of intermittent, and I was sure I was dehydrated at that point because I couldn’t even keep Gatorade down. They immediately hooked me up with fluids, talked to me extensively about what had been going on the past few months, and admitted me. I had gone almost 60 years of my life without being hospitalized for anything at all. And now here I was in a hospital bed, worried about myself, anxious about everything.

They ran a bunch of tests. I had three different kinds of scans and an endoscopy. They took so much blood from me. It all felt so intrusive and urgent and I just surrendered to the chaos of it all. Just find out what’s wrong with me, I thought. Do what you have to do.

After three days of this they decided my gallbladder was misbehaving and needed to come out. Surgery! I didn’t care at this point. I was on an all liquid diet - mostly chicken broth and green tea - I was tethered to the bed by an IV, I was exhausted and frustrated and I missed my dog. So I just nodded and went along with their diagnosis. Surgery would be Saturday. Almost a week after they admitted me.

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There’s something about being in a hospital bed for that long, where you just kind of settle into a bizarre routine of fitful sleep, having your vitals checked every four hours, nurses checking on you, and not showering. I felt gross most of the time but I also felt a bit like a hostage who knows they’re not going anywhere and I made the best of it. My sister brought me my MacBook and I was able to at least scroll twitter and Facebook at 3am to pass away the time when I could not sleep.

I went through two roommates; the first was an older lady who wanted to talk to me nonstop. She was nice enough and I learned everything about her life before she was released. The next roommate was a younger woman whose husband stayed with her the entire visiting hours each day. We talked about baseball while I watched the Yankees and she and her husband watched the Mets. She too was discharged before me. I was getting too comfortable in the little world I made for myself in a hospital bed. I felt like I would be there forever.

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Finally, the day of surgery arrived. They said I was an add-on so they didn’t know what time I would go in but at 7:00 am they were in my room telling me it was time. I was relieved. I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to my gallbladder. It was weird to me that they were removing a whole god damn organ from my body, but all I wanted at this point was a) relief from whatever was plaguing me for months, and b) to go home.

The surgery was uneventful, everything went fine and I had three small incisions in my abdomen to show for it. They ran down the litany of things I needed to do/not do when I got home, told me the best ways to recover, and said I could go home the following day. I was elated, if a bit groggy.

Recovery once I got home was not great. I was uncomfortable as hell, couldn’t sleep, and was cranky as a result. I slept on the couch because being almost upright was the best position for the pain. I was happy to be back with my kids and my dog, so that mitigated some of the recovery pain.

As the physical discomfort sort of dissipated, I noticed a different pain, one on the left side of my abdomen. I felt is especially when I bent down or walked more than ten feet or tried to sleep in my side. It was a constant, low level pain that got worse as I exerted myself. It felt - and still feels - like someone was twisting my organs from the inside. Not good! Not good at all!

I went to the surgeon for a follow up and explained the pain to him. He felt around, said it was not a hernia, and told me to take Tylenol/Advil for the pain and follow up with my gastro doc. I saw my regular doctor next and he couldn’t find the cause for the pain so he sent me for a cat scan. The cat scan didn’t show anything abnormal, which frustrated me because I wanted them to see something that explained the pain. When you have pain like this, you want to know what it is. You don’t want a slew of doctors shrugging their shoulders at you. When I saw my gastro, he was incredibly dismissive of my symptoms and told me to take some Advil and wait and see if it goes away. I was annoyed and cried on my way home. I made an appointment with my general doctor so I could press him to find an answer for me.

Yesterday, my gastro called and left a message. He said he looked at my blood work and my liver functions were way too high. There might be a gallstone my bile duct, he said. FINALLY. Something solid to go on. I scheduled an MRI on my liver for next week (the soonest I could get). I don’t like waiting that long and I’m not too thrilled about having go for an MRI, but if it means I’ll get some answers, I’ll do it.

I have not been to work since the end of June. I’m going to get my doctor to sign off on my sick leave through next week as well, and we’ll see what the MRI says about my liver and if I’ll have to take any more time off. I’m going a little stir crazy - it hurts when I drive so I’ve only been going to doctor appointments - and I’m bored with the internet at this point, but I can’t possibly work with this pain, especially when sitting up in a chair for more than a half hour causes it to get worse.

I just want to get better. I want to be pain free, as much as this 60 year old body can be pain free. The good news is I can eat again. I eat very small portions and I watch what I’m putting in my body, but being able to enjoy food again is wonderful. I did lose about twenty pounds during the whole ordeal. Not an ideal way to lose weight.

And that’s where I’m at now. I just wanted to fill you in on things I’ve alluded to on here or Facebook/twitter. I haven’t felt much like writing creatively for a bit and I apologize for the lack of newsletters. Hopefully next week I will get some answers and be relieved of my pain and life can get back to normal.

Thanks to everyone who has checked in on me/sent me messages with good vibes. I appreciate it and I will get back to proper newslettering soon enough.