Medical Update

On Monday I had another test done at the hospital that tested the functioning of my gall bladder. They give you a radioactive isotope through an I.V. and then you lie down under this machine that is monitoring things for 2 boring hours while your gall bladder fills up--then they give you a hormone to make your gall bladder contract and you lie under the machine for another 30 minutes or so while this is going on. No big deal other than the fact that they have your arms strapped to your sides so you hold still and don't interfere with the images they are taking. You would be amazed at how many times your face itches in two hours. You don't notice when you can scratch it. When you can't scratch, it becomes much more noticable! Anyway, the results came back normal. However, about an hour after the test, and for the next two days, I was feeling even more pain than usual. Yesterday I went to a surgeon to discuss the results of the test. He said that often you feel no distress during the test but if you do for a day or so afterwards, it is probably your gall bladder. There are no other tests that they can do to tell for sure if it is my gall bladder. He said that if they take my gall bladder out, there is a 70-80% chance that it will take care of it and I will feel better. They will do it with those odds, as soon as I decide I have had enough of the pain. Well, I'm not there yet. They gave me a strict diet that I can follow to see if it helps so that is my plan for now--try the diet and if it helps, I will have a better idea that it is my gall bladder.

Meanwhile, I took Son #1 to the doctor on Monday for some problems he has been having. They ended up doing an x-ray of his stomach and abdomen and tell me that it looks like he has some kind of blockage in his intestine--what?! We were a little shocked by this. He hasn't ever complained of stomach pain. They sent him for an ultrasound of his kidneys and bladder on Tuesday and said when they get the results of that back, they will call so we can figure out what to do next. So we are fairly anxious about that but are hoping it won't turn into anything too complicated. It seems that we will be reaching our medical deductibles this year. Ugh!