Sorry this may be a long post but I will try to write everything as accurate as possible for journaling purposes.
July 5th: 1:30 a.m. I woke up with real bad back pain. Why? Well from sleeping outside on the ground... I thought. We camped out in my parent's back yard for the 4th. Well I went inside with Lexi and decided to sleep in the couch. Luckily, I was able to get a few hours of sleep but woke up at 5:00 a.m. I could sleep any longer so I decided to watch t.v. I noticed that I could not slouch at all or breath deeply. I just kept thinking that I must have done something bad to my back. By this time I couldn't sleep on my side back or stomach. I just had to sit up. Alex my little brother asked if I wanted a Priesthood blessing. It's a good thing he asked because I don't think I would have asked. (Still working on asking when I know I should.) Aubrey put the oil on my head and Trevor my older brother gave me the blessing. After, I took some Tylenol and I tried taking a hot bath but that didn't do much. I was stuck in a very straight up uncomfortable position. The family planned to go boating that morning but I decided that we wouldn't go. I really wanted to but how was I supposed to enjoy it? So Aubrey and I went home. I tried lying on a heating pad with my back down. I touched my stomach. Ouch! I knew something was wrong. We decided to go to So. Ogden's Instacare. I fed Lexi while waiting. Having 8 pounds in my arms held close to my chest hurt really badly too. Note* While waiting in the lobby to be called, a lady sitting near by said, "I've gone through the same thing as you. It was my gallbladder. I had it removed and now I'm just fine." Weird.
Anyway, the pain was getting worse. All you women out there that have experienced contractions.... times this by 10 and don't let it take a break. Contractions go on for a minute then release. Not this. I was almost in tears because I could not get comfortable but most of all I was scared. I had no idea what the pain was and the nurse happened to ask if I got an epidural with this delivery. I said yes and then thought of all the side effects an epidural might have. Maybe the dummy got the needle into my gall bladder. Anyway back to thinking about all the things that could go wrong the doctor came in and told me to change. I peed in a cup and then came back to lie on my back as directed. The doctor felt my stomach. OUCH!!!! I about burst into tears. He touched my gallbladder and it hurt bad. He said that my white blood cell count in the urine was high. The pain was subsiding and I was able to breath a little more deeply now. He scheduled an ultrasound for my gallbladder.
At McKay Dee I had an ultrasound done and it hurt too. Okay it was uncomfortable, I wasn't crying but still I didn't like having pain that I couldn't identify. The tech finished the ultrasound and called the doctor. Result: My gallbladder was a little inflamed. Not bad, it could have been a lot worse by having gall stones in there. I should have done this first. Go
here to see what exactly your gallbladder is for.
July 7th: I had a follow up appt. to talk about the ultrasound. Aubrey and I had been reading up online and found that .5 million people get their gallbladder removed every year. So I thought, I'm probably going to be one of those people.
July 13th: Had a HIDA Scan done. It is a procedure to check the function of the gallbladder. I had to pump and dump my breast milk because of the radioactive chemical they injected into my arm. To know more about a HIDA scan go
here. McKay Dee performed 2 to 5 HIDA scan a day and usually finds something wrong. The procedure takes about an hour. I would get my results back in a couple days.
By this time I am just dying to know what is going on. I had been following a low fat low cholesterol diet and I was determined to follow it for the rest of my life just so that pain would never come back. I wasn't going to put myself through a non stop contraction if I wasn't going to get a baby for it. Plus, Aubrey and Leila hadn't had a home cooked meal since I hadn't learned how to make a low fat low cholesterol meal yet. There are lots of different reason one can have a gallbladder attack and I didn't know what the cause was. My guesses out of the possible reason.... Being female, having just had a baby, my age, or...... milk, hot dogs, and cheese are my weakness. I was mad that this was happening to me because I try hard to take care of my body by exercising and not eating out of control.
July 15th: Got a call from the nurse with my HIDA scan results. NORMAL. What? Seriously? I beat the odds. Not to mention I wasn't going to become one of 500,000 people a year. I felt so good about this. My thoughts were turned back to something Trevor mentioned in my blessing. I can't quote it but I do remember him saying THINGS IN YOUR BODY WILL RE ALIGN. wow! This is very special because in the research I did, I read that whatever damage has been done to your gallbladder is irreversible hence, people get it removed. I was and am grateful to my Father in Heaven for this and I spent time on my knees showing my gratitude. It has been a wake up call to eat better and to feed my family better even though that may not have even been the cause. For most people it is and I don’t want to be part of the reason that happens to someone else. So things are going good and sorry there are no pictures in this post. Until next time…..
