One Small Gallstone

I will never go to another afternoon appointment at this doctor's office again. Never. It was ridiculously busy!! I sat in the waiting room for a good 20-30 minutes and then I was brought back to a second waiting room where I spent another 20-25 minutes. Finally, I was escorted into an exam room. I only spent about 10 minutes in this room before my doctor walked in.

Then he turns on his little computer and starts by saying, "I saw you on the 3rd and we talked about an ultrasound, an endoscopy, and a pillcam... oh yes, I see we did some of those and here are the results..." I mean, really. Really? Why wouldn't he look first and then give me the results. He seems like an idiot who doesn't remember his patients when he does it this way.

Oh well... let's move on.

During the endoscopy, my doctor removed 9 stomach polyps. NINE! But, they're all gone! These polyps were biopsied. And thank God, no cancer was found! Also, no infections were found, no celiac disease was found, and no ulcers were found. Gastritis was found. And he didn't mention what to do about that - I, of course, forgot to ask. The polyps should NOT grow back and I don't need to have more endoscopies for these reasons.

Next!

The abdominal ultrasound. No mention of pelvic kidney, but he is a gastro guy, so I didn't think he would bring it up. He did say that my ultrasound showed a gallstone. Yup. Just one. One SMALL gallstone. According to my doctor, the small gallstones are worse than the big ones because they can get stuck. He suggested getting my gallbladder out. He insists that this is the reason behind the pain that keeps waking me up.

I'm not sure what to think. On one hand, I feel if this is the reason for my pain and nausea, then get it out! On the other hand, it's only ONE stone. Can it cause this? Then I think about the pain. It's not all day. It's not excruciating. It's just at night when I don't take a Zantac. So, is the doctor SURE? Could it be reflux? Could it be the gastritis? Or is it really the one small gallstone?

Then we come down to finding babysitters and finding the money. Oh, and don't forget the recovery period. Who is going to help me?

Not to mention that the doctor I was referred to does not take my insurance. Awesome.

My gastroenterologist still wants me to do the pillcam test... as soon as my insurance approves it. Seems like every test I have finds something small wrong, but is never an answer to the big picture.

My husband wants me to get a second opinion.

*Sigh* It's one of those days I wish I could see into the future and know what to do.

Endoscopy

An endoscopy is much easier to get through than a colonoscopy. Around November, I found myself getting nauseous at night. Almost every night since then, I've been woken up with either nausea or a pain that felt like someone just punched me in the gut. This only happened at 1am - give or take.

No symptoms during the day. No nausea or reflux type pain. Nothing. So, when I had to go back to the gastroenterologist, I asked him about it. He - of course - said he couldn't tell what it was without tests, tests, and more tests. Great.

The first test I had to have done was an abdominal ultrasound. No problem, I can handle one of these. Only prep was not eating or drinking after midnight. They said something about no meat or dairy 12 hours before, but since my appointment was at 8, that wasn't an issue.

The second test was an endoscopy. Thankfully, there is no bowel prep to this. Again, the only prep was to not eat or drink after midnight. Phew. Easy. Especially when I had to be there at 7am.

I went to the same hospital where I had the colonoscopy. And once again, the nurse could NOT get my IV in on the first try. I've NEVER had a problem with this anywhere else. I'm not sure why I've had this issue at this hospital. The nurse got it in the second try (but my arm was bruised good for over a week).

I remember being wheeled in the room, they told me to pump and dump a couple times and out I went.

I remember hearing voices right before waking up, the nurses in the recovery room were loud. Not that I expected them to be whispering, but I kind of wished they would go away so I could sleep a little more. They took me right back to the room where my husband told me the doctor said he found gastritis and stomach polyps. He had taken biopsies and would see me in a week. Lovely.

This time I felt more groggy. I was cold and just wanted to cuddle up under a warm blanket and close my eyes. But, I knew I had to get going. After leaving the hospital, we went to eat some breakfast, and then came home.

About two hours later, I felt like I had been run over by a bus. Or a truck. Or a train. I was drained, weak, and had a headache. My throat was a little sore, but not painful at all. No fever, no bleeding, just BLAH. I couldn't lay down because I was being supermom. I thought that since I was fine after the colonoscopy, I'd be fine after the endoscopy. I don't know what was different, but I was exhausted. At six o'clock, I told my husband I had had enough and went to bed. I didn't sleep, but I was horizontal and that felt wonderful.

The next day was the same. It felt like the flu without any other symptoms. I did get a little fever - up to 99.7. I talked to a nurse from the hospital, but she wasn't concerned. It lasted a couple days and then I was back to normal.

My one year old got sick, so maybe I had a touch of what she had (although she ended up having Roseola, and I'm pretty sure I didn't have that). I don't know if it was just a weird reaction to the sedation...

The doctor's office called me a couple days later to tell me the ultrasound I had showed gallstones and to please make sure I come to my follow up appointment. Don't worry - I won't miss it!

Separating Blogs

I decided to get a wee bit more professional and separate my personal posts from my writing posts. So, you can find keep updated on my books and writing by checking out my other blog: Talia Jager

Please follow it and spread the word!

The Continuing Stomach Saga

My nausea has yet to let up. It's annoying. It's mainly a night thing. Around 1 or 2 in the morning, I get nauseous or I feel like I've been punched in the gut. It's not a nice feeling. I decided to try 2 things. Stop eating after 8pm and take a reflux medication. I chose Zantac because that's what the OB gave me when I was pregnant with #4.

Both things seem to help, but I hate it. I'm a night owl and not eating after 8pm sucks. I like to snack at 10. And taking any kind of medication is just not my thing. I don't like taking anything. But, it does help the nausea.

I went back to see the gastro doctor, who doesn't really seem to know what's going on and just like I thought, he wants to run more tests. He suggested 3: an ultrasound of my gallbladder, an endoscopy, and a pillcam! How fun! I can handle the ultrasound, the endoscopy shouldn't be TOO bad, but the pillcam requires drinking something yucky and swallowing a BIG - well - camera in a pill. I gag easily, not sure how this will be.

I'm just afraid that after going through all these tests and spending all kinds of money on co-pays, there still won't be any answers.

Love Writing. Hate Formatting.

I hate formatting. HATE. IT. With a passion. Why - in this day and age - can't someone come up with a program that will take a basic Word document and change it into an eBook? I know, some of it has to do with the fact that Amazon uses Mobi and Barnes and Noble uses ePub. But, come on, people!

I have changed my Word document into everything possible and uploaded it and something is always messed up. I've gone back through my books and fixed anything that looked funny and most of the time it STILL looks funny. My main problem are the indents. They are all messed up!

Now, I've uploaded to B&N, and when looking at the sample, it looks fine. But, I can't see further into the book. So, you download the epub version of it and their Nook reader for computers, and then what happens, all the chapters are messed up on the top! UGH!

The other thing giving me trouble is formatting a table of contents. I had one that when you clicked on it went to the chapter, but the page numbers are wrong (they are okay on the Word document), but not okay on the eBooks because the pages are different. So, I took the page numbers out, but now I can't get them linked to the chapters.

I've tried some free programs, I've downloaded a free trial of Adobe's ridiculously expensive Indesign. Nothing helps.

Love writing. Hate formatting.

Barnes & Noble

Natalie's Story has been for sale on Amazon since July 2010. Now, it's on sale at Barnesandnoble.com. Same price $2.99. You can get the free Nook app for your computer or phone, just like Amazon. Or if you have a Nook!!

If you could go to the Barnes and Noble page and click the FB like link, that would help me out!

I've been working on formatting Teagan's Story so I can get that out. It's ridiculous. Why hasn't anyone come up with some software that easily converts a document into different things? I finally got the indents looking somewhat normal... but the table of contents... UGH!!!!