Stones and Sludge

The saga begins on June 10, in the middle of the night. Joe woke me up and told me that he was having severe pain in his chest, shortness of breath, cold sweats, and almost every other sign of a heart attack.

Off to the ER at 1:30 in the morning!

We were almost the only people there, so we were whisked right through check-in and into a room. As soon as Joe got into a gown and onto the bed, a swarm of ER people descended on him. He was hooked up for an EKG, attached to an IV, cuffed for blood pressure, and had blood taken for testing.

I was scared. I said to him, I said - “If you have the nerve to die before our son’s wedding, I’ll kill you.” It did lighten the mood a little bit. (The wedding was June 21 - It was wonderful.)

Then we waited.

In came the radiologist, who took a chest x-ray.

Then we waited.

At some point I realized that if Joe’s heart was actually attacking him, there would likely be more going on, so I calmed down. A little.

The lovely Physician’s Assistant (whose name, naturally, I cannot remember) came in and examined Joe. She poked and prodded and questioned, and then told us that he was most likely having a gall bladder attack. She ordered an ultrasound. She also ordered some morphine for Joe. (I could have used a hit, but hey.)

Then we waited.

The ultrasound guy came in and did his thing, followed by the nurse who gave Joe the morphine.

Guess what? Then we waited.

The doctor came in, yay! He woke Joe up (he had curled up in the arms of Morphine-ious). Joe had not had a heart attack; he had a severe gall bladder attack. His gall bladder was full of stones and sludge. Sludge! Who knew?

However, the gall bladder wasn’t infected, so we got to go home. Joe was instructed to call a surgeon.

It was 6:30 in the morning. Not bad for a trip to the ER.

After a long nap, Joe called the surgeon and set up an appointment for the June 15th.

That visit resulted in a laparoscopic cholecystectomy being scheduled for June 23.

It went very well. The doctor made five bitty incisions on Joe’s belly and yanked out the offending gall bladder. It was inflamed, swollen, and loaded with the aforementioned stones and sludge (Sludge!), so it was a good thing we went ahead with the surgery.

Joe is recovering nicely. I am too.