Gutting My Gizzard

We have finally found what we think ails me.

I am scheduled for surgery to have my gizzard yanked on
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
and I am feeling relieved.

(Hopefully they will take my gallbladder laproscopically in a procedure similiar to the above photo. The traditional gallbladder surgery is much more invasive and the recovery time includes a hospital stay and two weeks off.)

After nearly a year I believe we have found the cause of my pain, which happens to be two fold, making the diagnosis much harder. I’ve had severe pain in my upper left abdomen, right under the rib cage, for a long time. I saw a specialist when I was on Cox insurance. He thought it was intercostal neuralgia, which is some kind of inflammation of the intercostal nerve. That nerve, as I understand it, comes out of the spine and runs along the rib cage. We were assuming it was caused by some kind of karate injury, although I couldn’t remember any specific incident. I will say the doctor came up with that diagnosis without running a single test. He treated the injury with cortisone, which did nothing.

When my insurance switched to St. John’s I was very nervous about my care. My primary doctor sent me to a pain specialist who assessed me and decided to run some tests before making a diagnosis. That God-forsaken death hole known as an MRI machine is no fun place to be. I am a bit claustrophobic (from a past trauma which I will discuss in a future post). I had to have an open MRI because I couldn’t stand to be in that coffin case with the closed MRI. They also ran a nerve conduction test where the doctor jabs you with needles and measures the electricity in the muscles or some crap like that.

After the MRI and the nerve conduction test came back negative we had to look at other things. Gallbladder disease runs in my family, but no one seems to think it could be my gizzard. One night my pain was so bad that I was on the floor. It hit me between my shoulder blades and ran down both arms. Now you might be thinking heart, but it wasn’t. It happened right after I ate a meal and I thought I would hurl my guts before we got out of the restaurant. I begged the ER doctor to test my gallbladder. He told me it wasn’t my gallbladder and reminded me that I was fat.

“Has anyone – has your doctor – talked to you about your weight?” he said as he leaned with one arm against the bed.

I’m fat. No shitting Hell. You might as well tell me the sun is a big hot object. I know I’m fat, but I also know that the sharp stabbing pain, for months on end, is not some kind of fat pain. He also asked me three times if I was allergic to any meds, then followed that with a “I think I asked you that already.” He sure as Hell did ask me that over and over. He also interrupted me every time I tried to tell him about my pain, where it was located and my family history of gallbladder disease, but assured me it wasn’t my gallbladder; it was because I am so overweight. Big hot object, kids. And I had the pleasure of paying good money to be ignored, interrupted and insulted.

Indeed, two people in my family have had gallbladder disease that presented in the exact same way. Both endured months or years in one case, before a doctor would test the gallbladder. I made an appointment with my primary doctor, who has only seen me once since I switched to St. Johns. This physician was glad to run a test of the gallbladder. Thankfully for me she didn’t just run the ultrasound. That test came back fine. She ran the nuclear medicine, which tests the function of the gallbladder, and sure enough we discovered that the little bastard isn’t working correctly. So I am scheduled for gallbladder surgery this month. I was able to schedule it over fall break, so I should only miss one class. The university and my professors all appear to be working kindly with me regarding my missing classes. Of course I sit in the front row, take notes and am genuinely interested in learning so they are much more willing to work with a student who care about his education.

(The gallbladder is shown in green and it sits below the liver. And apparently you can live just fine without it. I can't hardly live with mine.)

Now it should be mentioned that my pain specialist recognized early on that one of my medications might very well be causing some of my pain. I was taking Tricor for cholesterol. Now, no one had mentioned it before, but Tricor is known to cause back pain. So he ordered the MRI and in the same breath told me to stop taking that medication for a week.

I haven’t taken it since. Much of my pain has subsided. Not all of it mind you, as I have a Hell-and-gone gallbladder. But a significant portion of my constant pain has been reduced greatly. I had no idea how much pain a prescription can cause. That also makes the diagnosis harder to make if there are multiple causes of the pain. In my case it appears that the medicine and gallbladder were working together to give me months of sleepless nights and stabbing pain.

Emotionally, it is very difficult to deal with pervasive and persistent pain. And at my age (that is the same age as when Jesus died) constant pain can lead to emotional worrying. Indeed, over the past few months I have felt that I was losing my mind and my body. I have been perseverating on my own death and fearful that something was terribly wrong with me. I internalized most of this, choosing not to worry my wife. That was silly as she was worrying enough for both of us. My parents have been worried too and try as they might, they don’t hide it well. They don’t say so, but I feel strongly that they have been worried about me dying as well. I have diabetes and am grossly overweight and so that makes me a good candidate for heart issues.

Not knowing the cause of my pain has led to a great deal of death oriented thoughts by everyone. No one says so, but it’s there. And their worries cause me to worry. Funny how that circular thing works. I understand their concerns. It is a horrible thing to bury a child and I don’t want that either. Having an eating disorder, and I consider myself as having an eating disorder, is a hard thing to deal with for everyone. It’s hard for others to understand and it’s hard for me to battle.

For now, I am feeling better. I am relieved that there is an end in sight. Not knowing what is wrong causes me more stress than hearing news, good or bad. If it’s bad I’d rather know and deal with it, because I can’t handle the not-knowing.

Now that I’m not taking Tricor and I know what’s ailing me, I am feeling better and ready to deal with this gallbladder head on. I am concerned about the surgery, of course, but I am not scared. I am ready to feel better. In a way, I’m looking forward to the surgery.

But my battle isn’t really over, even if the gutting my gizzard makes me feel better. I am still overweight, the sun is still hot and I have more work to do regarding my weight loss. I have lost about 15 pounds so far and I am riding my bicycle every week. Last week our bicycle buddy club grew to four and we increased our ride from 7 to 10 miles. That’s not enough, but I’m making baby steps. I hope to do better when my gizzard is gone.