The medical community says you don't need your gallbladder! Just take it out, no big deal right? I mean, it's not like we were born with it, right?!
I have a friend who works at our local hospital as a phlebotomist. He told me our hospital averages ONE EMERGENCY GALLBLADDER REMOVAL PER DAY. In a small country hospital. I can only imagine the numbers in a large city!
I told him about an ER visit that I had back in November of 2015. I had taken the kids acouple towns away to run some errands and grab some fried catfish from a restaurant that sits on the beautiful Rainbow River in Florida. We took pictures and joked and laughed. It was a beautiful sunny day and I felt great! Sure, I was tired all the time and would break out in sweats but hey, I'm in my forties now so it must be hormones and my busy schedule, right??
We started digging into the fried catfish and after just one bite I started feeling funny. Ok, no catfish for me. I'll just have salad and beans and rice with my favorite hot sauce.....
20 mins later it hit me hard! I thought I was coming down with the flu. I told the kiddos it was time to go home and they looked worried. "Mom, you're really pale and kinda green". Yep, I'm not well and I have a 30 minute drive home with 3 kids in the car. About halfway home, I felt the need to pull over. I parked in an empty lot and leaned the seat back to just rest for acouple minutes. Nope. That didn't work. Gotta get home.
I really have no idea how I made it home that day. The second I got through the door I raced to the bathroom and began vomiting every 15 minutes for 4 hours! I KNEW this couldn't be the flu and KNEW I was dehydrating rapidly.
I also felt this weird pain in my right side that was so intense! It was a familiar place, just to the side of my right ribcage. There had been weird dull aches and sometimes short stabbing pains for a few weeks now. Twitching in my right shoulder and swollen hands and feet as well. I justified the weird pains because I have to lift and carry up to 100 pounds at a time with fence posts, grass seed bags, baby cows, and carts of compost. That was a mistake to ignore those warning pains.
So I go to the ER. They can't get a vein for an IV because I'm too dehydrated. My blood pressure drops and I pass out. My poor husband thinks I'm dying right in front of him. I wake up and they put me in a bed and give me Apple juice to rehydrate. An hour later, I get my IV and a sonogram of my liver, gallbladder, stomach, and other organs. I requested this myself because of the weird pains in my side and the research I had done about sludgy gallbladder and gallbladder cleanses. I'm into doing occasional cleanses, fasting, raw vegan etc (yes, I'm a farmer who likes to go raw vegan a few times a year Lol), so I knew something had to be wrong.
Yep, gallbladder is sludgy. Dang. Guess my french fry and BLT days are over. The doc sends me to a gastroenterologist, basically a doctor for your digestive system, and then the real fun begins.....
Part Two coming soon! Find out what absolute bull@$!t the medical community put me through and how I saved myself!
THAT TIME WHEN I DREW A CROWD IN A STORE SHARING STEEMIT!
@farmandadventure/so-i-just-drew-a-crowd-in-a-discount-store-sharing-steemit
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. THIS EXPERIENCE IS UNIQUE TO ME AND NONE OF THE ABOVE SHOULD BE TAKEN FOR MEDICAL ADVICE EXCLUSIVE TO YOU. IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING PAIN OR ILLNESS, PLEASE SEEK THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL OF YOUR CHOICE.