A (yellow) Bear in Borneo

[MotherBear]

Originally Posted by Taffy

I could put one on....

Nah, it has to be the real thing and also you have to have a smooooooth bedside manner to go with it.

[selchie]

Last night a friend mentioned that her husband was having discomfort after eating, so mostly stuck to oatmeal. He thought he had a hernia, but as far as I know, hadn't had it looked at by a doc. I mentioned your ordeal, and wondered if her hub had gall bladder problems. ...Maybe Taffy could go help him - he probably wouldn't care what accent Taff used, or even know what accent it was.

[MotherBear]

As I found, to my cost, there are several conditions that have similar initial symptoms like acid reflux, ulcer, trapped gas. I guess the first real symptoms that should have indicated to my GP that something else was amiss was when I started having crushing chest pains during the night. The pains lasted for hours and no matter how I placed myself I couldn't ease them, I was sweating a lot and also brought up a fair bit of wind in an attempt to obtain some relief. I'm still not sure why I didn't panic and assume I was having a heart attack as the symptoms were pretty similar. One thing that had stuck in my mind was an ex-colleague of mine saying she had gallstones and had thought she was having a heart attack because the pain was so bad. For some reason, though, I didn't make the connection, possibly because there weren't any other symptoms at that time. It seems that these dreadful pains were caused by the stones moving around. I think it was about that time I had an ECG to check out my heart but it was, thankfully, OK. Then towards the end of last year my stomach went into spasm and the doc decided it was gastritis and put me on medication which seemed to ease things for about 3 months (or was it just coincidental? ).

It was only in the last few months that I started to go off my food and often felt queasy. I also found I had a niggling pain in my right side/back after eating which wouldn't resolve with shifting around. Some days I had pain under my right rib cage which spread into my stomach area and other days I wasn't too bad. Oddly, just before we went on holiday, I had been constipated for a few days and, after taking a few Senokot, things suddenly started to move. I felt great relief then and seemed to make a miraculous recovery. It was during a flight delay in Kuala Lumpur that things went backwards and I felt pretty rotten and in pain again. Luckily it was the last leg of the journey and I was so happy to get to the hotel and climb into a hot bath to ease my pains. It's the only thing that worked but I can't help wondering if the heat from the bath encouraged the stones to shift into the bile duct because it was a few days later that my urine changed colour as the bile duct must have become blocked. It was all downhill from there and every day was an ordeal to be endured. I'd seen the hotel doctor a couple of days after we'd arrived but had told him about the diagnosis from my GP in Oman which must have clouded his judgement as he just gave me similar medication like she had given me. It was pure luck that the next time I went back to the clinic, another doctor was on duty and she immediately could see there was a big problem. Of course, I was yellow by then and my urine colour was a give away that something was wrong. First she was going to test me for hepatitis B but when I told her that I had pain in my right back, she diagnosed gallstones and sent me straight to hospital for tests and the rest is history. It would appear that all the symptoms I'd been having were down to the presence of the stones. Latterly my skin had started to itch and I couldn't tolerate keeping my feet in a hot bath, as the souls itched to a point where I nearly ripped all the skin off them. My mouth became extremely dry to the extent that I couldn't put a piece of bread in there without it sticking like I was chewing a piece of blotting paper. This must be the point where I was becoming dehydrated although I was trying to drink as much as possible. Usually dehydration shows itself on me with sticky, clammy hands and dizziness but I had none of that so I don't know why it was different. By the time I got into hospital I found I couldn't even speak on occasions because every part of my mouth was sticking together to prevent speech. I had to sip water before I could speak as I had no saliva at all. This effect gradually wore off after 3 days on a drip and drinking 2 litres of fluids a day.

Selchie, I've put all this down in the hope your friend's husband will be aware of the symptoms and what can go wrong. It seems I've been developing my personal rock pile for many years now and it just came to a head at this point in time. Even if he only has acid reflux or an ulcer, it still needs looking into. The 'worst' thing that might happen to him is that he gets treatment and can return to normal eating habits. The best thing is that, if it's more serious, he will get early treatment to prevent a life-threatening situation like mine. He could start off by asking for a simple blood test for Heliobacter pylori which is a bacteria that can cause stomach problems. If there is any chance he has gallstones, an ultrasound scan is very easy and painless (apart from the technician slopping ice cold gel on you). A lot of us think and hope that aches and pains will just go away but, when they don't and keep recurring, it's time to find out what's really going on and to help the doctor make a correct diagnosis by monitoring and noting all symptoms.

I'm not so sure about engaging the services of Dr. Taffy though. As I remember him, he was happier tinkering with the internals of a car engine than anything more human. If you're looking for a dodgy, incompetent GP, I can also lend you mine .

[Taffy]

Don't let it be said that I wont give new things a try. If he wants me to operate, I'll have a bash. How hard can it be? Slice open, remove stones, sew back together. Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one. Easy.

[MotherBear]

While you're about it, puleeeease don't forget about the anaesthetic. Hubster has a nice hefty hammer you can borrow.

I'm sure someone will lend you a chainsaw for the cutting bits although I have to thoroughly recommend keyhole surgery over the 'slice-it-open' procedure. I haven't yet asked how he made all the holes in my abdomen, but they are very neat. Perhaps he punched holes through, so you might need something appropriate for that. If you're going for keyhole, you'll need lots of nifty tools and a fibre-optic camera so you can see what you're doing. Sounds like it's getting a bit expensive.

We should he getting the DVD of the op back any day, so I'll see what's shown on there. Perhaps you could do with a copy so you've got something to follow.

[MotherBear]

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 .

[MotherBear]

Well, last Thursday we took the video tape of my op into a shop to have it converted into a DVD. We have neither video player nor a TV so a video tape would be of no use to us. A DVD we could play on the PC or laptop.

The girl in the shop said they would have to send it away and it would be collected after the weekend, i.e. Saturday, and would be back in 3 days - Monday, and they would ring us to advise us when it was back. On Tuesday, not having had a call, hubster went in to ask if it was back. It had been done but the driver had forgotten to pick it up. Not amusing considering this place is very difficult to get to now due to extensive road works. The next evening hubster went again but was told it still wasn't back and could he wait half and hour? No he couldn't and he told them what they could do with the DVD because, considering the price we were paying for it, the service was very poor.

An hour after he'd got home he had a call to say that the DVD had finally arrived. Hubster again told them they could stick it in the bin as he didn't want to do business with them (he's very principled and doesn't appreciate being mucked about). He would collect the original video tape the next day when we were out shopping.

Meanwhile, I'm upset because I've been waiting a week to see this epic film, starring my internals, and now hubster has told them to bin it. There was nothing to say that, if we tried another company, we wouldn't still have bad service, which is the way of things here. In the end, hubster relented and went to collect both the DVD and the video tape.

So, we settled down in front of my PC ready for the show. I was quite apprehensive but nevertheless keen to see what had gone on and what had caused the doc such a scare while I was snoring my head off under the anaesthetic. In went the DVD as we braced ourselves for blood and gore. Nothing! Not even a message about the DVD. The PC appeared to be reading it but nothing at all came up on the screen. Over to the laptop to see if it would play on there. Nothing! Same story. It really looks as though there's nothing recorded on the DVD although it doesn't say that.

Now the thing is.... was there anything actually recorded on the video tape in the first place? We need to find out before we return to the shop and blast them to kingdom come and ask for our money back. I wonder who has a video player these days? We have friends who have one, but it's still packed in the remnants of their shipping. I tell you this much, if there is nothing on the video tape, I'm sure as hell not going to do a repeat so they can film it again. Can't anyway as my offending gallbladder has long been chucked in the bin, so that's that. Dear me, why are the simplest things so difficult?

[nickydwuk]

We have a video recorder but .......... we aren't round the corner You could always post it if you want. I am more than happy to proof view it first!!!!!

[MotherBear]

Finally took the DVD back to the shop and they checked it out on their player. I was encouraged when the guy asked hubster if he was a doctor because that indicated he already knew what was on the DVD and had viewed it. It narked me a bit that he (and probably several of his colleagues) had already seen my insides before I did.

The DVD did work on his player and on his laptop and I just caught a bit where part of my innards was jiggling around like something was pushing it from the outside. Shock, horror as what looked like a Phillips screwdriver suddenly pushed through into the cavity. Aaaaarghhh! That must be what the doc uses to punch holes for the keyhole surgery. Thank God I only saw it after the event and not before otherwise I'd have had nightmares.

Anyway, looks like the DVD is a goer but not on either of our machines. Hubster will take it to work tomorrow to see if it plays on his laptop there. If so, he'll try to copy it onto the hard drive and then put it onto my PC. Talk about keeping me in suspense . First I wasn't sure I wanted to see it and now I've decided I do, I can't. Bah!

Anyway, what a difference a week makes. Pic 1 is when I left hospital and pic 2 is just a week later (sorry, another porky bikini shot). Only one plaster left, covering my tube, and one small dark line to the right of my belly button which is all that is left of one of the puncture holes and I guess that will go soon. Ain't nature grand (or perhaps I should say 'Ain't keyhole surgery grand?' And, no, I've not gone yellow again - we have green glass in the windows and it makes everything look yellow. Not exactly my favourite colour any more .

[Taffy]

Anyone would think you were a swimsuit model in a former life!