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August 16, 2004

Gall Stones and such

Last Thursday, I went to have some tests done at the hospital. I had told Dr. Brown that I was having weird pains that the Aciphex wasn't helping, and when I described them she said the symptoms sounded like Gall Stones. So, I went to the hospital to have some tests ran.

Dr. Brown called me on my cell this morning to deliever the news ... the tests were positive. Apparently I have quite a few of them as well. She had an appointment made up for me within a half hour with a surgical doctor over at Baptist East. I go Wednesday to meet with this doctor to see what my options are. According to Dr. Brown, most people in my situation opt to have the Gall Bladder removed. I'm a little shaky on the idea of going under a local, but I have done it before and I came through it okay. I've always had this fear of surgery and being put to sleep, however, and I just can't seem to shake the butterflies I've had all day.

I decided to do some research today and looked up Gall Stones and Gall Bladders, and came across some interesting pages. Did you know that the Gall Bladder's primary function is to store large amounts of bile produced by the liver? The bile is stored in massive quantities to help break down fats in the digestive tract. I found that if you don't have a Gall Bladder, your liver will continue to operate properly, delivering bile to the intestine instead of the Gall Bladder, the main difference being that the concentration isn't nearly as high since there's no place to store the bile at once the bladder is gone. Instead, the bile is going directly to the digestive system in much smaller amounts.

I also read that once you have your Gall Bladder removed, it's very important to take good care of your liver. What this requires I'm not quite sure of yet, but I'll be sure to ask Dr. Brown when I speak to her again. I'm all about doing better things for myself these days, and if I need to make some more changes in order to make my liver work properly, then by damn I'll do it.

In other news, Amanda starts school next week. She's going to be going to the JCC downtown campus, which is nice because I'll be able to see her during the day more. Even better, we'll be able to have lunch together and stuff like that. I'm so happy for her and the steps she's making to improve herself. What's funny is that here I am saying all these great things about her, and she's talking to me at the moment. She asked if I was paying attention to her, which I was. :)

She's so damn cute.

Posted by ed at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)