ER Visits in Life in General

So I have kind of hit a stride with my stomach pain issues. My doctor put me on a statin to potentially help ease the strain on the gallbladder until I see the GI (still 3 weeks out ugh).

Honestly, it’s the only thing that has actually helped. Before I took this medicine, I would have 2 good weeks and then 2 awful weeks over and over again. But since the statin, I’ve had basically all good days (mostly… I’ll get to it in a bit). Also previously, my good days weren’t perfect… I still had some discomfort but it was manageable. Now, I basically have zero discomfort and zero symptoms (mostly… more below).

However, I’ve had a couple of huge setbacks. Unfortunately, feeling better recently kind of had me a little overconfident in what I could handle. I decided one morning that I had a craving for breakfast tacos. So I cook some eggs (gordan ramsay style) and and fried up a few pieces of sausage and topped it with a little bit of cheese. I went easy with the oil/butter because I knew the sausage and cheese would be a lot of fat already.

Well after I ate that I took a little nap and when I woke up I was in the worst stomach pain yet. It was different than before though, more to the right side of my stomach and more stabbing pain instead of gnawing dull pain like before. The fact that the location had changed and it was more intense had me extremely worried. I sat in bed for a while trying to just ride it out but after 30 minutes or so I decided it wasn’t getting better and went to the ER. The pain was pretty bad but I was still able to drive myself. When I got to the hospital I sat in the parking lot for like 20 minutes deciding if I was actually in enough pain to go inside. I have insurance but it aint free so I really didn’t want to go inside. But ultimately I just went in anyway because I didn’t want this to be the one time I was having a dangerous issue (like appendix problem or gallbladder burst or whatever) and not take it seriously.

I was lucky to go on a slow day because they immediately took me back and got me into a room. They did blood/urine tests and asked some questions. They decided to do a CT scan to check on my gallbladder. But unfortunately (or fortunately) the pain was already starting to improve by this point (still was pretty high but I could tell I was finally getting over it). Well I was already in the ER so I was like “fuck it I guess I’ll see what they find since I’m already here”. I think they knew my pain wasn’t as bad anymore since they offered me morphine and I turned it down. I was at a point where I could tolerate the pain and I didn’t wanna involve an opioid (I’ve never had one and they scare the hell out of me). But if anyone had offered me morphine at my house when the pain was higher, I would have accepted in a heartbeat!

Anyway the CT scan did show the gallbladder stones and sludge but no signs of cholecystitis. The blood test and images also showed that my pancreas was doing good too. So there wasn’t a real reason I should have been in the amount of pain I was in earlier (I have a suspicion that I just have a low pain tolerance, and the nurses laughed at me when I mentioned that because they said that most people say the opposite about themselves lol).

Anyway so another ER visit another huge bill with nothing to show for it. Well at least I’ll have some CT images for my GI specialist to peek at, so not nothing but I’m sure an emergency CT scan is a heck of a lot more money.. we’ll see once that bill comes in (yikes). I scheduled a virtual visit with my doctor tomorrow to discuss the results with him and ask some questions.

The main question I wanted to ask is if I really need to see a GI to get my gallbladder taken out. I suspect that he wanted me to see a specialist because he wasn’t totally sure that it was the problem. And I felt the same way but after this past weekend and what happened this morning I’m way more convinced it’s gallbladder.

Oh yeah this morning… so last night I was low on cooking ingredients but I did have the stuff to make some beans and cornbread. I tried to use as little oil and butter as possible but it’s difficult without making it inedible. So I ate a smaller amount thinking that would help. Well, in the middle of the night I woke up with EXACTLY the same pain I did last weekend. And it lasted the same amount of time and everything. But since I went to the ER so recently and got scanned, I knew I wasn’t in danger this time. But that didn’t make it suck less, it took like 2 hours for the pain to subside enough for me to sleep again. Then I woke up… almost completely pain free. It’s like night and day once it settles down.

Doing any amount of googling about the type of pain and when it happens, it’s almost certainly a gallbladder attack. I’m wondering if the sausage i used for the breakfast tacos and the beans are the cause because both meals that caused the issue had that. But either way, I’m going to ask my doctor if it’s possible to just be referred to general surgery to get this thing out of me. Of course I know that having it removed means I’ll have diarrhea anytime I eat too much fat and whatnot, but I’ll take that over the pain any day.

I bet he’ll say “well since you’re so close to your specialist visit let’s just wait for their recommendation” but I hoping he’ll refer me in the meantime so that way if there is a wait (since it likely won’t be classed as urgent) I’ll already be on the list. I’ve been dealing with this bs since January so I’m just eager to get it done soon.

I wanted to write about the solar eclipse but this entry is already too long at this point so I’ll come back and update later!

Last updated April 24, 2024