So, every once in a while I’ve taken to twitter to complain about my physical health situation, so I figured I’d give anyone who might care an update on here.
To take a bit of a step back in time, I’ve been having stomach issues for some time now. Since about October 2017, give or take, I started getting pretty bad “ulcers.” I remember the first one was later at night after my wife had already gone to bed. I was at my computer in my room working on typing something or other and this pain in my stomach just kept getting worse.
My stomach felt extremely tight, like it was considering jumping out of my body but lacked the courage, but got more confident. My chest was hurting, my body started shaking a little bit and I was sweating from the contracted muscles that wouldn’t let up. I went into our bedroom and woke up my wife to let her know that something was happening and I was getting scared. I, in between shortened breaths, described my symptoms that she looked up and we figured it was an ulcer and that it would pass on its own eventually. I couldn’t sit or lay down, because that made it worse, so we waited it out together for about 30 minutes when everything released and I felt like nothing had happened. I was tired, but the pain was gone about as fast as it started.
It would happen here and there, but very infrequently up until I went to India for my work trip in June of last year. There, I suffered my worst attack yet. It lasted about 90 minutes and caused me to throw up for the first time (after which I felt fine). I had to call a doctor to my hotel room and they gave me meds, but that started my current restricted diet and journey to find out what is wrong with me. Because, when I got back home, I had attacks much more frequently.
So, while I went to the doctors, I heavily restricted my diet to only include things that I knew wouldn’t hurt me. It mostly worked. But even so, I’ve been dealing with random nausea and discomfort and pains even from foods that had been fine dozens of times before. Basically, every meal and snack is a bit of a crap shoot. Tums have been my best friend for the past 8-9 months. I lost about 20-25 pounds, but it was not the most ideal way to do it.
It took a few visits and tests, but what we’ve figured out is that I am not having ulcers. I have a bunch of small gall stones and likely what I eat is causing those attacks. What took a while is that I don’t exhibit typical gall bladder symptoms and we’re not 100% sure this will fix things, but it’s the best shot right now.
So, I go into surgery this Wednesday for an outpatient procedure that shouldn’t be too bad. I’m really excited to be able to expand my diet again after however many months. I’m not sure yet if this will mean more or less ability to blog and whatnot. I know that I will be at work (from home – as always) the next day since it will only feel like I’ve done a million sit-ups and maybe a little tired. From that perspective, I won’t have extra time. I’ll have to play it by ear as to how much time I want to, or can, spend with my laptop on top of me writing off-hours. I do know that I won’t be able to lift anything over 20 pounds for about 4 weeks, so I won’t be able to sift through my larger 5000 count boxes for a while.
It’s been an interesting journey, certainly occasionally frustrating (like when a cream of chicken soup caused an attack while I was shopping in Target and I just kind of had to suffer on the cart for a while), but I’m pretty happy that this chapter is hopefully closing. That way I can move on to complaining about other things on twitter, perhaps even card-related things.
Best of luck. Hope this all clears up with a minimum of unpleasantness.
Sorry to hear about the gall stones. I hope your surgery goes smoothly. Sending positive thoughts and vibes your way.
Best of luck! I have a lot of stomach problems myself, though I don’t have what you are having so I don’t know exactly what you are going through, but it sure sounds unpleasant.
I always try to remind myself when I’m out in the world, that you never know what other people are dealing with. Your chicken soup-Target reference made me think of that. … I’ve known you’ve been having some issues recently, hopefully this eases things.
Best of luck! Here’s to a speedy recovery!
Thank you very much for the well wishes. All signs point to this being a very positive thing with relatively minor discomfort in the short term. The blog may be a bit quiet, but I’ll keep you posted when I’m back.
Stomach-type issues suck so I’m glad you seem to have a solid diagnosis instead of having to worry about what it could be. Good luck on your recovery and I’ll be here to see all your new Maddux and Wood cards when you’re back!