My time in ER for 36 hours Part 2

So, after the 1st shot of morphine, it still felt like my attack was still quite strong. They gave me another shot about 15 minutes later, and after another 5-10 minutes, I felt like myself again. I think it was about 10 am by now, or a little later, and that's when the waiting began.

I had no more real pain, just a lingering sense of pain in my chest that stayed throughout the day. The did several blood tests and told me all my tests came back negative, so it took until about 4:3:00pm, but I was finally released under the understanding that they didn't know what it was, maybe gas, and to return if it ever happened again. One nurse told me not to wait 20 minutes before coming but to just come right away. So, I went home and had some food and relaxed a bit.

As I was putting my daughter to bed around 8pm, I felt like the attack was starting again. It was coming on slowly, and thinking it was possibly just gas, I tried some yoga positions and miscellaneous stuff I found online to try to displace it. It was slowly getting worse. After 15 minutes, I finally told my wife that we were going to the hospital again so we got the little one bundled up and drove to the Sturgeon Hospital for the 2nd time that day. Thankfully it's only a 5 minute drive!

This time, a different triage nurse stopped my in my tracks and was kind of mean. She told me to breathe slower and was very condescending. I told her that they told me to come back and they released me only 3-4 hours earlier, and if they wanted to figure out what was wrong with me at all, it would be nice to see a doctor sooner than later. But I had to wait another 20 minutes before a nurse even came to get me, and by then, thankfully, the pain was starting to go down. I was still quite diaphoretic with this attack and it was very painful, but only reached a 6 out of 10 on the pain scale, as opposed to the 10 out of 10 earlier that day. But, I was so exhausted and had already had such a shitty day, that I truly felt to weak to withstand another attack. So I was very relieved once it ended.

By 10pm or so, I was in another room in the ER, and I was getting another I.V. inserted in my other hand, and blood tests began again. I waited, and I waited. My wife went home with the little one right away and I thought maybe I'd just cab it home. At 1:30am, they told me they'd keep me overnight for observation, and likely do a CT scan (cat scan) in the morning. I went through several more blood pressure checks and blood tests, and was just waiting and waiting for news from anyone. Finally at 11am, a doctor came in to tell me that some bloodwork came positive for some liver thing, which points to gallbladder function, and said they thought it would likely be gallstones and cancelled the CT scan and scheduled an ultrasound.

At 1:30pm I had the ultrasound and the ultrasound technician told me she saw several gallstones, with one of them being 1.8cm, and at 3:30pm, was told this same info by my doctor. The doctor told me he thinks I should have my gall bladder removed and was having the surgeon come down to consult with me at 4pm. The doctor said something like, "We all know there's only one way to remove gallstones - surgery." The the surgeon came down and said he's 90% sure it's my gall bladder based on my description of the pain, but said my case wasn't typical because my 1st attack came without food. He said what could happen is we remove the gall bladder, only to find that it's something else. I asked if I could take a few months to see if I could alter my diet to avoid getting attacks and he said I could try.

Now, once I heard the word gallstones, I was thankful actually, because my wife had gallstones. She had similar attacks (the pain was more abdominal for her, whereas mine was in the chest), and she treated hers with Lidan Tablets. The tablets were mentioned to her by her family doctor, Dr. Aung. She had 3 ultrasounds done. Her first showed evidence of several hundred gallstones. Her second, 2 months after starting the Lidan tablets, showed less but still some gallstones. Her third ultrasound, 5 months after the 1st ultrasound, showed no gallstones. She only had 2 more attacks during the first 2 months of taking the tablets, and she hasn't had any since (it's been 10 years).

We mentioned this to my ER doctor and he kind of rolled his eyes like, "Yeah right." He thought we were some homeopathic nuts. Anyway, I've seen first hand that gallstones can be removed naturally without surgery, and I guess he hasn't.

Anyway, after learning I had gallstones and talking to the surgeon, it took another 2 hours for someone to notice me still waiting in the room and say, "Hey, shouldn't you be discharged?"

One thing I learned in the ER. Medicine is just guesswork. Sure, things like broken arms, gunshot wounds, and operations have their procedures and we know a lot more than we used to, but while I was in my ER room, about 12 patients were admitted and dismissed from the room beside me (on the other side of the curtain), and I heard the doctor give 80% of them Tylenol 3, and a "come back in 3 days if it gets worse". I heard, "Well, we don't know what you have..." "We don't know..." "Go home..." "Come back again if..." It was eye opening. People are waiting for 5 hours in the main waiting room, only to get taken to another room where they wait another 2-3 hours to talk to a doctor, only to be released with no more real knowledge of what's wrong with them, but possibly a prescription for some pain killers in hand.

Anyway, I've adjusted my diet accordingly so as to avoid potential attacks while I take the Lidan tablets. I had already stopped drinking pop in December, so now it's just a matter of limiting my intake of fatty foods. I've eaten 7 meals since getting released, and no attacks yet. It could've just been a bad day, and I could likely eat poutine tomorrow without any effects, but I'm taking it a little easy on the fat intake from now on as a general rule. Nothing extreme, just a conscious effort. You're looking at a guy who used to supersize everything. I would upgrade my salad to poutine regularly. Thankfully I've already stopped that habit back in December as well, so now it's just a matter of being a little more conscious of it. Like today I had cottage cheese and rice cakes as a snack instead of a bag of chips. As an additional note, regardless of the gallstone issue, I've been on the healthy diet track for a while now, and have lost 20 pounds since December 2005. So it's really not too much of a stretch for me to make some slight adjustments. I have noticed how much I eat chips though.

I was debating stopping caffeine and alcohol intake as well, but found evidence to support that they both do more to prevent gallstones than to cause them. Moderate use of course.

Well, that's my story. I'm glad it wasn't a heart attack and I think that I always knew my Pepsi addiction would come back and bite me in the ass. Well, it bit hard. But man, Pepsi is good. I regret nothiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggg!!!!!!!