Spare Parts

A few years back my wife woke me up because a volcano went off in her stomach. Bent like a pretzel I had to get dressed and roll her out to the car and rush off to the emergency room. Once there I was able to give them my insurance card and fill out enough paperwork to enlist in the French Foreign Legion (and I may have I am not really sure, someone keeps calling the house gibbering in some non-English language and I get some odd emails now and again) we were allowed to wait two hours and then taken to a bed where we spent another 3 hours. They did enough tests so that my insurance company built a wing on to the hospital, said "Damned if we know, better see your doctor", pumped her full of morphine and sent her home happy. Two weeks later we were back. A bit later, the first attack was at 2 AM, the second was more courteous and let me sleep until 4 AM. Upon finally seeing someone, the first thing they said was, "what did your doctor say it was?" "Don't know," I answered, "her appointment is a week from tomorrow, earliest they could get her in." Well, they did enough for my insurance company to build an office building to rent to the local doctors, pumped her full of painkillers again and we went home. We did learn that a) a gasteric cocktail is nowhere near as tasty as a normal cocktail

and had even less effect on what her issue was and b) morphine makes you feel really, really, good and makes the volcano go away. The doctor she went to had no idea what was wrong, prescibed medicine anyway, ran no tests. Not the best $20 copay I ever spent.

Now, to hear my wife describe it, the pain is in the middle of her stomach, incredibly intense, at least an 8 out of 10. The reason it isn't higher is that it isn't constant, it seems to come in waves. varying in their intensity. My wife doesn't have any full blown attacks for awhile, she has a couple of milder ones, that the medicine seems to help and if she can ever get to sleep, she wakes with an upset stomach that goes away in about a day. Then in 2008, BOOM, another intense attack, around 11pm. I heard the hospital in the neighboring city was remodeling, doing some major renovations and building a new outpatient surgery center, so I took my insurance card and wife there.

We actually got to a bed much faster here, but the overall weight was just as long. We seem to average 3 and a half hours per emergency room visit. We could spend a night in a decent motel for the copay. Anyway, my wife starts asking for morphine immediately. I try to hush her up. Not that I don't sympathize, but given my profession, I am very aware that there are a large number of people who show up at emergency rooms just hoping to score pain meds and I want them to take her seriously not label her a painkiller junkie. Usually backpain is the ailment of choice, but given that people around here run to the emergency room for toothache and sneezing twice, usually cause they have no insurance, or ran out of alcohol and started worrying about that cold, anything is possible, so I tried to get her to concentrate on what was wrong with her. At some point I think I heard mentioned the 2 words I would later learn might be her issue, but at that point I was convinced it was all in her head, some sort of anxiety attack. I would later regret that and feel bad, although there was a bit of truth to it. Anyway, while the doctor took more time, and more test the results were the same and we went home.

A year later, 6 days ago I spent another 4 hours in the ER. This time the doctor seemed a bit more focused. Specifically on an organ called the gall bladder. These were the words I heard the last time I was here, but with no follow through. This time in addition to the phenegrin and morphine, he referred her to an ultrasound. Unfortunately due to a communictation breakdown, my wife didn't know to not drink before hand, so it took her 2 days to get it, and sure enough there were stones in there. That was two days later and I spent another 3 hours in the emergency room getting lectured on the gall bladder, it's purpose and duties, and what goes wrong. Apparently stuff just happens, it grows rocks, then anything (food, stress, Ben Stiller movies) set it off and it has contractions, squeezing the stones and waves of exquisite pain ensue.

You know how when you take that complicated gadget that you have no idea how works apart to fix it, and once you put it back together and you have those 3 springs, 4 screws and 7 plastic and/or metal pieces left over which obviously serve no purpose, because it works fine without them until it breaks down again for a completely different and unrelated reason and you have to replace it but buy a different brand or model because obviously that one was junk?

Well the human body is like that, we come with bits that don't really do anything usefull except give doctors a way to make lots of money. If you think about it, what do gall bladders, tonsils, and appendixes do anyway? Basically they just develop infections or stones, then you either buy lots of medicine or have them removed. Apparently they aren't needed, so why are they included. There are enough necessary items in there to go wrong, do we really need the accessories?

Anyway, we found out many things. Apparently if you are having gall bladder problems you have to watch what you eat. According to 2 doctors and a nurse, raw green vegetables, spicy food, greasy food, fatty food, and nuts are all bad and will set off an attack. The surgeon says the gall bladder wouldn't know the difference between a head of lettuce and five-alarm chili with extra peppers, what matters is the amount. He says the stomach has to stretch to trigger the hormone that starts the old gall bladder going, so as long as you eat small amount spaced out, you can eat anything. Who's right? They both agree soda is bad because the carbonation swells the tummy.

So what have we learned?

Gall bladder = extra part

Gall stones = bad

Morphine = good

Gall bladder + gall stones = new wing on hospital paid for by my insurance company less co-pay.