Selchie, while I was reading up on 'Life without a gallbladder' I found
this site which, if you read it through, gives a pretty good rundown of the symptoms of gallstones and gallbladder problems. It might give some indication to your friend's hubby if he does have this problem if it's advanced enough.
Must say that some of the sites I read it gives some scary after-effects of gallbladder surgery whereas others play it down. Pity someone can't sift through all the cr@p and just leave the decent stuff for those of us who really need to know what's what. Some make it sound like I'll need to drag a commode around with me
.