#gall bladder

My gut felt like there were red hot needles and knifes being stabbed into it. I felt nauseous. I felt faint. I very nearly threw up.

It was not the first time I felt this way but it was the worst I’d ever felt. I’d been getting increasingly bad pain for over a year and I had gone to countless doctors trying to determine what it was.

The doctors at the ER — thankfully — took me seriously. They determined I had a severely infected gallbladder and the only way to save my life was to have surgery to remove it.

I still had to give consent before the surgery.

I remember being terrified. I was alone. There was no one to help me. And somehow, even though the only course of action I could take was to consent to the surgery the fact that I had to before they could take action made it all the more terrifying. The consequences of the surgery would mean I would live, but I’d never quite be the same. I felt cheated by my own body. Why was it this way? Why couldn’t I be healthy? Functional? Why wasn’t my body working with me?

The nurses, doctors, and surgeons there were all incredibly kind to me.

One surgeon in particular — the one who ended up operating on me — said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life. “Your body is there to help you. Sometimes, when part of the body is no longer helping you, the best thing to do is cut it away. You’ll be so much happier after the surgery. You won’t be in pain anymore.”

I think about that a lot.

I think about it a lot when I see trans men begging for help to get top surgery and are met with resistance or well meaning but ignorant messages begging back to not “mutilate” their body.

I think about my surgeon, who was so kind to me and knew what to say when I was scared and crying and alone in my hospital bed.

Your body is there to help you.

Sometimes, when part of the body is no longer helping you, the best thing to do is cut it away.

You’ll be so much happier after the surgery.

You won’t be in pain anymore.

I hope you get your top surgery.

I hope you will be so much happier.

I would really just appreciate some help even small would mean the world to me that I’ll save to fund for my surgery.

I unfortunately can only accept through v*nmo which is @ jordanH_00 (But im working on trying to get another option set up)

If you were to send me money I’d appreciate it sent privately but it’s not necessary

At 4AM on Wednesday morning I woke up with a terrible stomach ache. I assumed it was just the usual hunger, so I went and drank some water, and that made it worse.

By 5AM I was randomly convulsing in agony, and I had the thought that perhaps I might actually die. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was ashen and waxy.

So I woke my husband up, and tried to say, "I need to go to the emergency room" but a wave of pain hit me right about then and it came out more like, "I neeATHGNG<GNGG emergency ROOM!"

He went from 5AM sleepy to panic awake in about 0.5 seconds, and barely had enough time to grab my wallet and his wallet and threw me in the car and drove like a madman to our preferred hospital (i.e. the one that will fight my insurance the least.)

I managed to hobble in, doubled over, and the admitting people took one look at me and gently led me to a desk. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Laying down had hurt. Everything hurt. They got me pulled in as a Level 2 (true emergency) and whisked me to the back to run a bunch of tests.

Thankfully, it was an almost empty waiting room - but I know that Level 2 is "yeah someone is actively dying right now" so I am sure I made the correct decisions to go to the ER.

I thought I might be having a gall bladder attack, but several hours, 2 shots of morphine, an EKG, an ultrasound, and an X-ray later, and there wasn't anything obviously out of the ordinary.

By the time they concluded I wasn't having a heart attack, they packed me up and sent me on my way.

I was still super nauseous when I got home and although I tried to drink some Gatorade and diet ginger ale, I ended up throwing it back up. Weirdly enough, once I had thrown up, I felt better???? Like.... everything gradually returned to normal?

While I was in the hospital bed, I tried to think of any other possibilities besides gall bladder - and then I remembered I'd eaten mushrooms yesterday, but my husband hadn't eaten them.

I told him to throw the leftovers away. Perhaps it had been food poisoning. I still don't know. The ER team thinks it might be an ulcer. I have to follow up with my PCP some time next week.

They discharged me after 5 hours, with some medications in case I needed them.

I'm alive, though. I'll be staring down the barrel of a large copay for a hospital bill, but I can cover that from my personal emergency fund.

All this to say that we shouldn't take our lives for granted. I think I nearly died yesterday. At one point I stopped breathing on the bed. My SPO2 kept dropping below 85% and setting off the alarms. They concluded it definitely wasn't a heart attack, and probably wasn't a gall bladder attack, but it was something and that is really scary.

Digestive Organs

The Gallbladder: the organ, referred pain, associated muscles, meridian and fascia

This organ is said to refer to the right side shoulder, but after that the consensus on referred pain seemed a little less clear. There are images and articles that show abdominal referral and posterior referral to a spot on the back. One doc I talked with used to refer to the abdomen as a “black box” in terms of its mysteries and pain.

On a parallel, there’s common agreement that popliteus is an associated muscle but after that there’s some discord.

Just sitting with this one for today… what movements benefit your gallbladder?

[Adaptable Polarity]