Gallbladder disease leads to things such as Pancreatitis, Gall stones, Internal infections, and can kill you. It can be very painful. You feel a bandular pain around in your ribs.
I had felt that pain several times. I asked my doctor what he felt that pain might be. First he thought perhaps gas, then later he thought that since I am large breasted that it was pain from my breast weight and he suggested a breast reduction. Finally, I was diagnosed with gallbladder disease. I was very sick by this point, several years into the disease. I developed pancreatitis and an internal infection and had to be admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery and removal of my gallbladder and stones from my pancreas.
Actually it wasn't that simple. I had gone to a specialist and I was feeling very sick. I went home and went to bed. Later that night my brother (the one addressed here) called and left a message with my boyfriend that my Dr. had called. Like I said I was very ill and since it was after hours I did not want to call the Dr. and bother him. I had an appointment that next morning anyway.
The next morning when I made it to my Dr. Appointment, the Dr asked me what I was doing there. He told me that he had called the day before to tell me that I had pancreatitis and that I should be admitted to the hospital. This was not remotely close to the message I had received. He was surprised that I was alive much less walking around and he sent me directly over to the hospital.
My immune system was weak already and was weakened further by this episode. Due to stress in my life from both past abuse and after-effects, my body was susceptible to bigger problems.
I remember while in the hospital that my brother came to visit me. I did not want this. I was heavily medicated. I would get up to go to the bathroom and he would peek at me and try to catch glimpses of my body (easy to do when in a hospital gown). My boyfriend noticed him doing this and tried to cover me up. Then, after being told this, when it was difficult enough just trying to stand, I had to focus on making sure I was not looked at. As I look back I am very angry. I should have been allowed to heal, not had to focus on protecting myself.
I have been in the hospital several times since this first time. Each time I dread having to have my brother there. I worry about what is going on if I am not awake. I worry about how he is looking at me. I think I will rant about this on my angry page. I hadn't realized how upset I was about not being allowed to heal from health problems. Perhaps this is part of why I try to go back to my regular life as quickly as possible.
After my surgery I had a lot of pain in my abdomen. I ended up having a second surgery because the dropped a gallstone in my abdomen. The stone floated around and cut up my insides for a bit. It worked its way down to the backside of my bladder. Because of the irritation it was causing, my bladder grew a fatty sort of case to hold the gallstone still. I had to have open-surgery to remove this because due to the cat-scans appearance, it looked like cancer.
