About 3 years ago while I was pregnant, I went to Labor & Delivery at the hospital because I was having some abdominal pain. After a few hours and an abdominal ultrasound, they determined the pain was caused by a couple of gall stones and some "sludge" in the gall bladder. OK...stay away from greasy, fatty foods and I'll be fine. And I was until about 2 weeks ago. I woke up about 2am with what I thought was bad indigestion and gas pains. After about 2 hours, the pain subsided enough for me to go back to sleep. The next day I started thinking about it and did some research. By that evening, I had decided what I experienced was probably a gall bladder attack.
Fast forward to this past Friday night. I went to bed about 10:15pm feeling just fine. I remember falling asleep on my back...which is rare for me. I woke up about an hour later, still on my back, and thought I had a cramp in my right ribcage. I rolled over onto my left side and it seemed to get worse. I thought to myself that maybe I needed to get up and walk around to make it go away. I got up and started walking to the half bath for a potty run while I was awake. By the time I got there, I was beginning to hurt pretty bad and felt like I might faint. I decided I needed to wake Perry up because I was starting to feel light headed and the pain was worsening every second. I quietly woke him up (Abby was in the bed with us) and went back toward the stairs. By the time I got there, I crumbled into a ball on the bottom step. I was in sheer agony. The pain was excruciating. Perry came over and I could not even talk through the pain to tell him what was wrong. I finally managed to squeak out where I was hurting. Another couple of minutes passed and then my left hand started going numb and started drawing itself closed. I had no control over it at all. This really freaked me and Perry out so he ran to go put on some clothes. He went upstairs and told Emily to come down and stay with Abby because he was taking me to the ER. Then pretty much picked me up and put me in the car. I could barely walk and just stayed in the fetal position once we made it to the car.
After 2.5 hours in the ER, an IV for fluids, something to calm my gall bladder down, some morphine, and an abdominal ultrasound, they told me that I had several gall stones and a lot of "sludge" which meant Gall Bladder Disease. It would have to come out. Since my pain has drastically improved (thanks to the morphine), they sent me home with a prescription for something to calm my gall bladder down should it happen again, a list of local surgeons, and instructions to call one of them on Monday. Oh, and the numbness and drawing closed of my hand? Classic symptom of hyperventilation. Nothing to worry about.
I felt horrible all day Saturday, but returned to normal by Sunday. I did call a surgeon on Monday and I have an appointment this Friday. I am going to beg him to give me some strong meds to keep me hanging on until mid-January. I do NOT want to have surgery right now! Hopefully I can hold this off until the 3rd week of January. Meanwhile, I ask for your prayers.
