It has been a rough month. This is in regards to my health. I started to have abdominal pain one day at work. I knew immediately that it was my gallbladder (based on where the pain was located). The thing is that sometimes you have to play the healthcare game and I knew this. The other thing is that I had abdominal pain right before my book came out and I was sure it was my appendix. I went to urgent care and everything came back fine. I chalked it up to anxiety. This time I was not going to go to the Emergency Department (ED) until I either started to have more symptoms or I really could not take it anymore. The pain started on a Monday afternoon.

The pain never let up. I worked the rest of that day. I worked again on Wednesday and when I got off work Wednesday, I pulled into the driveway and was hit with nausea. There was my second symptom. It was nearly midnight and the last thing I wanted to do was go back to the hospital, so I tried to go to bed. I was too uncomfortable an hour later, so to the ED I went. Now, earlier in the day, I had already called my Primary Care Physician’s office (PCP) to get scheduled to come in on Thursday afternoon to be seen. In the ED, my blood work came back ok, except that my potassium was a little low. My CT scan was negative for acute cholecystitis or anything that said that my gallbladder needed to come out right away. Since I was scheduled to see my PCP on Thursday, the ED Physician and I decided that I would go home and follow-up as I would likely get the ultrasound (which would be the next step in this process anyway) done as out-patient.

I went to my appointment and was able to see my PCP and get the ultrasound done right away. Keep in mind that the pain never subsided and once the nausea started, it also never subsided, but I never started to vomit. The other thing to note is that I was not really eating all week as that made the pain worse. My PCP wanted me to get repeat labs on Friday to keep an eye on that potassium and asked that I eat some bananas to get that potassium up.

My ultrasound came back negative for acute cholecystitis. The next step was to be evaluated by gastroenterology (GI) and have yet another test. I called the GI office and they could have me seen in November. I took the appointment and texted one of my GI colleagues who got me on his schedule for first thing Monday morning. I do not take lightly how lucky I am to have this privledged position to be able to be seen quickly like this and feel so bad for our terrible healthcare system that everyone else would have to wait until November to be seen. Of course, I was not to wait until Monday anyway…

I went to work on Saturday and started to talk with one of my physician colleagues about what has been going on and they were in disbelief that I was even working. I finally got my lab results back and they basically showed that I was not intaking enough food and that I need hydration and nutrition. I worked by day and then went back to the ED so that I could be admitted for hydration, pain medication, and nausea medication.

The following day, I had an upper GI scope to make sure that this was not an issue inside of my stomach. That came back negative. On Monday, I had a test to look more closely at my gallbladder. It was decidedly non-functioning and by Monday night, I had surgery to have it removed.

It was an entire week of pain to get this thing diagnosed and removed. I was cared for by my colleagues and the nursing staff that I know at my hospital. Having a significant history of mental health disorder, that was on my mind because now my colleagues know about my anxiety and depression. The thing is that it never came up. They ordered my medications that I needed, I never felt judged. I felt taken care of for what was happening in my body.

The purpose of all of this for anyone outside of healthcare is that I realize that the system is frustrating, but you know your body best. If something is happening and the tests are coming back negative, it just means that we have to get to the next test. Insurance dictates a lot of what we do, also we have to rule out the emergent things first. The point to all of this is to stay persistent. If you know something is wrong, then stick with it and keep coming back if you have to. The problem will be found eventually. No one knows your body better than you.