I sit here today with a 9" incision in my torso and minus a gall bladder. To be honest I am truly grateful to be sitting here! Over the past several months I have at times felt lethargic and low energy. I thought this was a result of reaching my 70th birthday and working in the heat and humidity. Then I noticed reduced appetite followed by a recurring low grade fever that would come and go without apparent rhythm or reason. I self diagnosed to be a blockage of some type as I was constipated more often then usual. The real bottom line is I was putting all this in my head because I turned 70 and had an underlying belief that that's what one feels when they get to that magic age. The day before Thanksgiving I went to the urgent care with a dull ache in my stomach beneath my sternum (breast bone). The nurse agreed I was apparently more constipated than usual and gave me a prescription for muscle relaxers and sent me home. To clarify, before the past couple months I was seldom constipated. On Thanksgiving I felt nauseous with the continued low fever of 99.5-100 degrees. I continued to feel bad Friday and Saturday, lethargic with no appetite and continued low fever. At no time did I ever feel seriously ill. Sunday things took a drastic turn for the worst! In the afternoon my temperature shot up to over 104 and I was completely out of it mentally. I only have short glimpses of that afternoon and evening. My wife called an ambulance that took me to Shands Hospital in Gainesville where I was diagnosed with a severe load of gallstones. They decided to perform laparoscopic surgery the next morning, a simple quick operation requiring only 4 small incisions. My temperature had then increased to 106 so at 4 am I was taken in for surgery. It was soon discovered my gallbladder was extremely inflamed with necrotic tissue progressing to gangrenous. My short operation required a 9" incision with the operation lasting in excess of 4 hours. I was told if I had not had the procedure done when I did I probably would have not survived more than a day or two!
Why am I writing this? Because I never felt that bad! I am hoping my story will encourage the readers of this to not take those odds and ends pains lightly. We know our body and what is not right with it. As the saying goes, "better safe then sorry"!
