Chicago Marathon 2012

Chicago Marathon 2012
You Can Still Run For A Cause!

Friday, July 31, 2009

Surprise!

Sooo, for the past few months I've been dealing with what I thought was heartburn, an ulcer, one of my meds causing stomach pain or something along those lines, but today I got a phone call from transplant coordinator nurse extraordinaire, and she said in not so many words "surprise! you have gallstones!".

How do they know this?

July I had my annual lets make sure nothing has gone horribly awry with study patient, abdominal ultrasound. Turns out something was awry. I go back to Chicago in a week for an added appointment and I'm sure said stones will be discussed then.

Meanwhile, you can sell your stocks in Tums. Sales will be plummeting. I'm going to stop eating them like they're Skittles.

They never helped anyway.

3 comments:

jennifer said...

i am very sorry to hear this..gall stones are painful,i had my gallbladder removed a year before i was diagnosed with diabetes...and as yyou did i ate every ant-acid insite until nothing was working anymore...hope all goes well..jennifer

Jonah said...

How did they find out it was gallstones from labwork?!

I had my gallbladder removed in April, and my gallstones were diagnosed by ultrasound.

I've read that gallstones are asymptomatic but present in the majority of elderly people. There's only a reason to actually do something about it if: there's pain, there's a threat of it bursting (causing infection), or it's messing with other organs.
In my case, it was all three.

The surgery was no fun but it is much much much more tame than transplant type surgeries.

parrotletzoo said...

I have an abdominal ultrasound once a year since the islet transplant as part of the study.

I was having abdominal pain. I think if the stones were in the common bile duct threatening pancreatitis or liver issues UIC would have had me come in sooner. I'll find out more next week after my appointment.

Thanks.