In case anyone wondered why I've been so quiet and absent. Last week I had a bout of insistent back pain. Thursday night it escalated and around 5 am I went to the ER. There they decided I was jaundiced, my liver numbers read upside down and my pancreas was doing back flips. They naturally decided to keep me and take out my gallbladder. That happened Monday. I'm back home now, with a lot of free time on my hands and a whole lot of codeine saying gimp something. I'll be checking in here often for lack of anything better to do with my life for a while.

And I thought I had a lot of gall ...

Contrary to all outward appearances we do notice when people go missing.

Nice to have you back.

Get well to full recovery, ek22!
Yes, I was wondering what had happened. Glad you're home and well.

Get well soon!

Oh my, glad you're home and recovering. Hope you get to feeling much better quickly. Nice to see you back in here.

Yeah, I didn't mean to say you guys wouldn't notice, just maybe that I'm not always posting or something. I don't know, these meds they gave me keep giving me micro naps, I might not make a whole lot of sense right now. Thanks for all the well-wishes though.

Glad they caught it in time EK22; hope your recovery goes well so, for now, enjoy your vacation (just kidding, but do hope you have a better New Years and heal quickly).

oh dear EK22, that must have been a bad surprise for you
a friend of mine had his gallbladder removed because it was full of stones and he told me the attacks were the most horrible pains he ever endured

hope you're getting well soon !

Also had it removed some years ago. I don't know what was the worst, the attacks, or replacing all dairy products by soy-based substitutes in my diet to avoid them while waiting for a slot in the surgeon's schedule. My kids say that based on their dad's edginess, it must have been the soy substitutes.

Yes Esper, they are as close as you can get to heart attack symtoms. When I had the operation it was a major one with a diagonal scar covering the whole stomach area. I think it was the most painful operation ever.

Sheesh, reading these stories here, I guess I got lucky. They did a procedure called Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. They poked me full of holes instead of cutting through all the muscle layers and abdominal lining. While I can say I feel the after effects of surgery today, I'm sure I'd be in much worse shape had they opted for open surgery instead. When they did the MRI, they were about 90% sure I had passed any stones in the ducts and immediately put me on a liquid diet and IV drip. No more solids meant no more gallbladder contractions and no more new stones passing. I remained like that for almost 72 hours before they went in. I thought my stomach was actually ripping open when I was passing that first stone though. It really is some of the worst pain imaginable and even if it doesn't kill you, it makes you wish you were dead.

Heck of a way to spend a Christmas holiday. Glad it's over and you are on the mend now.

You were not lucky, this is the standard procedure since the late 90s.

stay well.