By Thanksgiving the bloating was obvious. I hadn't eaten a thing and already felt full. I noticed a bloody discharge when I went to the bathroom but didn't know where it was coming from. Went to my PCP and she couldn't tell where it was coming from. She sent me to another doctor and even that doctor didn't know where it was coming from. It didn't happen all the time and of course, it wouldn't happen on the day of a doctor's appointment. Since I'd already seen two doctors about it and they couldn't find anything, I was prescribed Prilosec and I thought that this bloating would be another type of pain that I would have to endure.
After the holidays were over, I decided to take a different type of action. I approached my husband with the idea of a weeklong, vegan cleansing. He agreed. In addition to the cleansing, I was consuming a Korean red ginseng extract. I was determined to try to "cure" the bloating as naturally as possible, but for the next few months, the bloating was persistent.
March 31st was a pretty good day but by 11pm, I wasn't feeling so well. Earlier that day, I was at a neighborhood store and picked up one of my Mother's favorite treats, chicharrones. I like them but passed on eating them until about 9pm and I couldn't resist. I opened the bag and ate about 4 pieces. That was it! I was really eating clean until that moment of weakness. Unfortunately, that moment of weakness nearly cost me my life. Like I said, by 11pm I thought the chicharrones were coming back to haunt me and I felt like I deserved what I got. I tried to wash it down with water but that didn't work. It's now midnight and I popped a couple of papaya chewable, but that didn't work. When I started palpitating where the pain was, I quickly realized that it wasn't my stomach that was the issue. Something else was going on that I'd never felt before. This isn't good. This is bad. I washed up and put my clothes back on as the pain began to increase. I woke my husband up and told him that I think I needed to go to the ER. Something was wrong but I couldn't tell him what was wrong because I didn't know.
We arrive at the ER and I'm the only patient there. Thank you, Jesus! As the nurse is listening to my complaint and taking my blood pressure she asks, "Do you still have your gall bladder?" Gall bladder? Of course but what's that got to do with....uh oh. I'm taken back to a room and you know something is really wrong when a parade of physicians keep coming in to see you. A CT-Scan and an MRI, I was told "Your gall bladder needs to be taken out immediately. We're going to try to get you into surgery as soon as possible." So, long gall bladder. For the full gall bladder story, click here.
