Fun, not, started at 5 Thursday morning when I woke up with, and from, significant chest(just over the plexus) and back pain. Not a good wake-up for an overweight guy quickly closing on his 50th.

After having spent about an hour trying to find some position that didn't hurt, I decided to call the medical advice line.
They listened, and decided, you need more urgent care, so connected me with the emergency service, who sent an ambulance.
After a bunch of tests at home, the EMTs decided, to the ER we go. And so we did. Interesting, first time for me in an ambulance, would have been better without a pain of about 6 on a 1-10 scale.
Got to the ER, and every heart related test under the sky happened. Nothing. Not a single thing. But, one of the things I got was a plastic cup of lidocaine and slowly the pain petered off. With me not in pain, and nothing obviously wrong, I was sent home. Not like they could do much. Got home and slept most of the day and all of the night.

Friday, there's a pressure that sort of slides in and out of being a very low grade pain. Come the evening, my fingers and toes get real cold and my face all flushed. Turns out, I have a fever of about 38.5/101.3. Nothing much was thought other than that I'd picked something up in the hospital. Drink a bunch, pop a OTC pain pill, go to bed. Woke up in the morning, fever was gone, chest still hurt just slightly.
So, I made a mental note to call the doctors office Monday morning and got on with things.

Except, the fever came back Saturday evening... And then Sunday evening too.
That quickly went on the wayside, though, when at about 1am, night between Sunday and Monday, my chest started hurting again. This time, a much sharper pain, and one that went down under my ribs on the right following just under the edge of the ribcage. It hurt bad. Not as much as Thursday, but a much more "urgent" pain, the first having been duller. So, after about another hour of no position that gave relief, I called emergency services straight off. Yep, ambulance again. And, again, nothing obvious. I was given the choice of going back to the ER, but figured, I'm getting a doctors appointment in the morning, so I declined.

Morning finally came(and that was a looong night), I called and got an appointment that afternoon. So, I spent about 4 hours in the shower, trying to relax as much as I could.
Come the appointment, and the least useful doctor I've ever had. It was very clear that about 60% of what I told him was meaningless noise going in one ear and out the other. His conclusion was, "You have gastritis, I'll give you a prescription for omeprazole(Losec), you'll be right as rain!" That would be very unlikely to give pain under the ribs on only one side, and definitely wouldn't lead to a fever. "Hmm, you say something? Sorry, gotta go."

Yeah. NOT happy, me. But sure, he's the doctor, I'm not. So, off I went. But then something got into me and I went searching the symptoms. And, what do you know, almost word for word, something fit.
Gallstones. Which did not sound optimal. But, since it was a likely thing, I called the medical advice line again, and the nurse agreed.
By that time, though, the evening had arrived, and with it the now expected fever, and so I decided to try and sleep.

And the sun rose on Tuesday,and I trundeled back to the ER this morning, and presented my case. And, they sort of agreed that there was a not-actually-zero chance I was right. I'd better come in and have that looked at
Cue a new battery of test, a bunch of questions, and a LOT of waiting. Finally, a doctor came by and said, you're going up to have an ultrasound done. And, away I went. The conclusion was that, I did not have gallstones. But, I DID have Cholecystitis, an inflamed gallbladder. This was not what I wanted to hear as such, but at the same time, better to know!
Now, of course, the next issue arose.

See, normally, this needs to be addressed within 72 hours. But, from when? From Sunday morning, when my second round of serious pain started? Sure, that's doable. From Thursday, when the first pain attack came? That ship is well sailed.
And so, I currently sit in a bed in the surgery department, a hose stuck in my arm, awaiting tomorrow and a conversation with the surgeon(s), who will then decide if they're going to start cutting parts out of my guts or if they'll decide that antibiotics is the way to go.

Fun times. Oh such fun.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

Major headslaps about the delayed diagnosis. Hopefully things will go more smoothly now that it seems like you're dealing with doctors who are a little more on the ball.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

---
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Craig

Turns out I was wrong. The next morning, ish, I was bundled off to do the MRI thing, which incidentally was an utter misery when I found out that the contrast fluid and I do not agree at all. Being trapped inside a large ring that I couldn't get out of when afflicted by MASSIVE nausea was not a fun time. It wasn't made any BETTER by the fact that I hadn't actually eaten anything for about 72 hours at that point, and so was mostly cramping trying to expel things that wasn't there.

Anyway, the MRI found out that, I did indeed have gallstones, and fairly well lodged ones too. And so, with conversations with surgeons, it was decided that I was to be moved to the next hospital over, as it were, the local one having its surgical theaters well booked for the next couple three days.

I was sent off to the next town over, and arrived late in the evening to, pretty much instantly, be trundled off for surgery. The doctor(s) and nurses were all amazing, and nothing really notable happened from that point of view. The wake-up was a bit of a bastard, apparently they use CO2 to "inflate" you and this will travel around...and caused a reaction in my shoulder that hurt like an absolute bastard. Felt like someone was carving dull knives in there, and led to me being totally incapable of getting out of bed for the next 6 hours.

I was kept for another 24 hours after I woke up, and was then allowed home, the extra time because, well, it was apparently a bit more urgent than expected. "Heavily inflamed, organ walls thickened, easy to cause bleeding, and beginning necrosis" is not fun things, and I have realized that, reading your own medical papers isn't really a wise thing.

But, it's been a few months, I'm fine, and haven't even had issues with eating. The nurse said I'd have issues with eggs, but I don't eat those ANYWAY, so...

There's where it's at, thought I'd give a bit of closure to this post as it were.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"