Gallstones – Part 2

I had gallstones around the age of 18. I say this is when I had gallstones because this is when the symptoms started. The gallstones were found and my gallbladder was removed at age 23. Needless to say that during the previous 5 years there was a lot of pain and suffering and damage done.

When someone talks about the pain of gallstones, this is the pain of death. Child birth has nothing on this pain. This is unlike anything you have or ever will experience. The nausea, vomiting of bile, cold sweats, fever, increasingly intense pain, shortness of breath and other symptoms too horrible to talk about. You will have rapid weight loss and severe dehydration to the point of all of your veins collapsing. As some of these gallstones pass through the bile duct there will be damage done. Permanent damage. Pancreatitis. This is what I now live with every day. Never knowing what will set off another agonizing episode of this horrific disease. You always watch what you eat, what you drink, the medicines you take. No smoking or being around anyone who does smoke. I have just recently been in the hospital for another bout of pancreatitis. When an episode happens you have to “rest” your digestive system. This means no food. You get fluids through an IV and get meds to stop production of all stomach acid. This is by no means a fun and easy stay at the hospital. The pain, nausea and vomiting all take their toll on your body after a few days and you begin to waste away. It does not take very long for the body to drop weight like this. On average, I will lose between 15 and 20 pounds in a weeks time during an episode. Pancreatitis is a great weight loss method, although I wouldn’t recommend it.

When I had my gallbladder taken out, the doctor gave me a 50-50 chance of survival because my system had been so poisoned. I wore a stomach pump for a week. They drained all the bile from my liver into a bag that hung beside my bed for a week. I was in a coma for a week. My body had literally shut down from the trauma and poison. I woke up a week later and went home after a two week stay in the hospital. It took me over a year to get over the trauma of that surgery. Little did I know that things were just beginning for me. The damage had been done to my liver and my pancreas and life would never be the same again.

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