Don't ignore your gall bladder

It seems like everyone is having gall bladder issues these days. I know of three right now. Anyway, I thought I'd post my story again as a cautionary tale.

It all came to a head on Oct. 19, 2010. I collapsed in my doctor's office and MAST gave me a ride to KU Medical Center. They thought I might be having a heart attack. My blood pressure was crazy low and I was weak. The EMT popped four or five aspirin in my mouth on the way. A team of cardiologists was waiting for me in Emergency. They quickly determined my heart was fine, but my blood sugar was 980. Normal blood sugar is about 100. I was also experiencing liver and kidney failure. There was something wrong with my pancreas.

I would spend the next eight days in ICU, two weeks in the hospital and four months in bed, most of the time with a drain in my abdomen due to a cyst that had formed on my damaged pancreas.

All because of something the size of a few grains of sand. A gall stone had lodged in my common bile duct - the tube that carries insulin and other good stuff from your pancreas and the excess bile stored in your gall bladder, both of which aide in digestion and keep your blood sugars on an even keel. My gall bladder needed to be removed and I had a nasty case of pancreatitis, which would ultimately scar about 80 percent of that organ and make me insulin dependent, likely for life.

The kicker is that I had years of warning. For about seven years I thought I had acid reflux. I would sometimes have horrible indigestion after eating certain meals. Usually on Sunday nights, after a weekend of binge eating all the stuff you shouldn't eat. But, instead of going to the doctor I would just eat better for a few days and I would be fine. About three or four times in the year prior to this I had had severe bouts of pain right in the center of my chest along with vomiting and nausea. Still, it would be better by the next morning. These are classic symptoms of gall stones.

In reality I was passing gall stones, only this time the stone did not pass, instead backing up my pancreas, causing the cyst, which in turn caused a hole in my stomach where the cyst and stomach met. The cyst was infected, so I had heavy duty IV antibiotics twice a day for three months. The antibiotics were so good they killed all the bacteria in my digestive tract that Jami Lee Curtis talks about in those yogurt commercials. Not a good time, let me tell you. And, the cure for that is to take pill twice a day that leaves a constant aspirin taste in your mouth.

A lot of pain, a lot of trouble and a lot of worry for me and my wife, which could have all been avoided by going to the doctor.

So, be warned.