It's good to be alive
 

So, last Monday morning, around 4am, I started to get pain in my chest under my right rib. I wrote it off as a gas pocket and kept doing what I was doing... but the pain started getting worse and also moved from my right side to the center of my chest (about an inch under where the ribs end). It just stayed there and didn't seem to want to go away like a gas pocket normally would.
Finally, after putting up with it until about 11 Am I decided that it was time to get it checked out, so off to the local hospital ER went I for some evaluation. Well, after testing me with an EKG and other tests the verdict came back that it was not a heart attack. However, after a CT (CAT) scan and some other tests it looked like it was my Gall Bladder. Met with a surgeon and he ordered a few more tests for the following day. Next day (Tuesday) was an MRI and something else, followed by a confirmation from te Doc that indeed, it was my Gall Bladder, it was infected, had gall stones and, to quote him.. "it was hot".
2:30 PM that same day I was in surgery and it was removed using Laproscopy. Talking to the Doc afterwards he said it was scared from previous attacks and he wondered why I wasn't in worse shape from the infection. (Put me on massive IV doses of antibiotics). I'm happy to report
that the next day I was doing really good and was on solid foods already and by Thursday evening (although still *very* tender I was sent home. Doing better every day now, walking without any pain and more importantly able to draw a full lungful of air without pain. My point of all of this is to caution everyone not to just shake off heavy pain and think it's a gas pocket. It can be much worse, from a heart attack to a gall bladder to kidney stones to ??? Take pain seriously, it's natures way of telling you that something isn't right.
I got my Christmas gift early. I'm still alive.

Glad to hear you are doing ok. And its not during fishing season.

Very thankful that you’re doing well and great post to make everyone aware of the issue. It’s too easy to do the “man thing” and brush it off, but it’s not the smart thing.

I'm glad your doing well Paul. Your so rite about pain .it is indeed letting you know something is wrong.Glad you got it taken care of and that you can enjoy a wonderful Christmas!

Happy to hear that that's all it was and that you are on the mend already. I totally agree with your advice. Merry Christmas to you and your family.:clap:

Close call, D, glad your back in the pink. This will be a christmas you won t forget.

One of the guys at a parts house i trade with was having lower back pains and shortness of breath, turned out to be a gall bladder problem. I always thought of gallbladder as a digestive problem. I guess that issue presents itself in many different ways.

Depends on if it also has stones or not. Glad he's doing ok, and yes, this is most certainly a Christmas to remember. :beer:

Thank you all for the good wishes.

Merry Christmas everyone

You done good...
 

Glad you are up and about. I worked in health care for 44 years doing treadmills, ekg's and echocardiograms. Postponing treatment of chest pain has caused many people to end up with more irreversible damage than they would have otherwise. Good on you for getting it checked out quickly.

Merry Christmas and a happy 2020!

XXL

Happy everything worked out in a positive direction for you, God bless. Nobody wants to go to the doctor or hospital thats the last place we want to go but sometimes you have to. I get pains all the time but when do you go to the hospital? I had this pain in the head and it would be a pounding headache then I said to my wife,Stop hitting me in the head with that pan, then it went away,that was a close one

Glad everything turned out ok! We're all getting older and with age comes some aches and pains. Glad you listened to your body and went to get checked out. Hope you continue to recover well.

Wow, glad you got that resolved! The timing is crazy as I've had right upper quadrant pain intermittently for the last year. Just under the right rib. It started last year around this time right after I had the flu. While getting the flu checked out I talked to the doc, they just kinda said it was nothing. Fast forward to about a month ago I went back in to the doc for this pain and they scheduled a CT scan. 2 weeks later I got a note in the mail that the scan was reviewed and normal. So I guess I'm just supposed to keep dealing with this pain on and off? LOL It just seemed to me they would try to figure out what it is. I read online that CT scan is only about 75% accurate on detecting gallstones while ultrasound is the preferred method. Seems they would have done that first, esp considering the $3100 bill I got for the CT scan (that's before insurance, but dang).

When I was a kid my parents took me to the doc and doc said I was jaundiced. They ran blood tests which revealed elevated bilirubin. The doc said I likely had Gilberts syndrome. Reading online I saw where people with GS have a higher risk of gallstones. Later when I was in college (over 20 yrs ago) I had a bought of nausea that lasted around 3 days. Could not keep anything down and puked green bile. Went to the ER and they kept me overnight for testing. Never figured it out and never happened since.

Not sure where to go with it now. I guess I need to schedule a follow-up. Did you have right upper quadrant pain before this event? If so was it intermittent? Curious to know. The pain I have is dull. I also notice elevated dull pain after a big meal.

Happy New Year!
Blue

My pain was not dull. Started out as a tiny dull pain under ribs on my right side, just below the nipple. But the pain kept building until it seemed to cover the entire right side of my body, under the ribs. As previously mentioned, I thought it was gas so I started deeply massaging my chest just below the ribs. And it seemed to work! The pain did indeed shift to the center of my chest, about one inch below the ribs, and the pain on my right side seemed to lessen somewhat... so I took a wait and see attitude.... waiting for the pain to go away. But it didn't go away.. It just stayed there, never getting more, never really lessening. After a few hours of this torture I decided it was time to let someone else look at it so off to the hospital I went. Checked into the emergency room, told them I was having chest pains
(which is a red flag to them to check a person immediately in case it's a heart attack... it cuts through all the red tape and the waiting in the ER waiting room). It sounds like you "may" have the same thing as me Blue, but certainly I'm no doctor so take my thoughts with a grain of sand. I'd tell your doc you want an ultrasound done post haste. :head:

Glad you are back on your feet D.

In 2011 I was going to the gym regularly, riding bicycles a couple hundred miles a week, eating semi well, in great shape...but I kept getting sick.

Sinus and ear infections, occasionally just vomiting for no apparent reason, even ended up with pneumonia. This went on for 9 or 10 months.

Eventually I had a gall bladder attack (there is no mistaking when you are having one of those). My gall bladder was so infected that I had to lay in the hospital for 2 days on IV antibiotics before it could be removed.

My surgeon said that I probably had the gall bladder infection the whole time I was having all the other problems. My body was busy fighting it so all the other things were able to get me.

I did NOT have any stones.

A note on post gall bladder removal, at first you really have to watch fat intake, a hot dog or ranch dressing will shoot through your system like a freight train.

All these years later, hot dogs can still give me a little problem if I eat too many of them.

Mine was infected also. I was on IV antibiotics for about 20 hours before my operation, and then for the balance of time that I was in the hospital.
It's funny though. I was cautioned by just about everyone that the first several months would be "difficult" with certain foods passing through like a freight train, yet in fact the exact opposite for the first week was the only thing that I experienced. It was more like a slow boat to China. I've had several hot dogs since the operation, as well as a few hamburgers from Mickey D's. In fact, the only thing I have noticed is a weight loss of almost 9 pounds so far. I attribute that to the fact that it seems I cannot eat a "full" meal anymore. It's more like several little meals over the course of a few hours. Weird :head:

Thanks RB and D, good info on gall bladder issues. I guess I need to get back in to the doc for another look. RB how did they determine it was your gall bladder? Ultra sound, CT scan, both or other?

After a fairly big meal I began hurting so bad that I could not stand up and was vomiting, I went to the ER and the doctor recognized the symptoms. After they gave me morphine, they did an xray expecting to see stones but could only see the infection. The doctor said that normal gall bladders don't show up on an xray so he knew mine was very infected because he could see it.

I know you asked RM, but to add my 2 cents, on me first did an EKG (because of the chest pain) then they did an X-Ray, that gave them the initial diagnosis, then a CT scan and a MRI, as well as another scan that I don't remember the name of. By the time I was ready for surgery they were 100% confident that it was my GB. Oh, and a Ultrasound was mixed in there someplace also.

Good to know thanks guys!

been off for a while. never had gall stones but I get kidney stones every couple years. if they're anything alike, then MAN!!! doctor just went in and broke up a staghorn stone. I wont tell you how he got in with his camera and his laser and other assorted apparatus, but let's just say peeing was painful for the next few days.
i'm glad you're doing well. we get up around that age and the golden years start with their shenanigans. I also need to get my health back in check. I wanna swing around the country and have a cup of coffee with every dam one of you guys.

Good to see you back here Charlie. Still polishing the rails for NYC? Did you ever get that truck you were looking at? :head:

I had a boss that had stones like yours.... I saw the agony he went thru. Glad that yours are not bothering you right now.

A brief note, back on the health topic. I’m up at 4:00AM, at the hospital at 5:00 for a double bypass. Not looking forward to the recovery, but it’ll be nothing compared to Charlie’s stones and will be nice not to be dying of a heart attack. I’m glad they caught the blockage - never had any heart attack symptoms, just very occasional light headedness. Fortunately my doc decided to order a stress test and a bunch of tests later they said this is necessary (and showed me all of the pictures - it was easy to agree).

If they don’t croak me in the hospital, I’ll be checking back in a few days. You all take care.

Praying for you and your doctors and nurses Skook.

Scook - thanks for the heads up. Doesn't hurt to have prayers sent up from our little community. Glad you are out ahead of it - so many others never know until it is too late. Here's to a speedy recovery!!!!!

Welcome back charlie, been wondering where u been.

Scook i had open heart 4 years ago this April, it s gonna make u weak as a kitten, but better in the long run. Do what the docs tell you to do and let them know if something is bothering u.

Best of luck

After the operation and while you recover and from then on start taking at least 300MG of Qunol® Ultra CoQ10. (or any CoQ10 that is Ubiquinol) (Ubiqunol is absorbed by your body 3x better and faster than regular CoQ10.) It literally saved my life. It strengthens your heart, especially if you are on a Satin drug that robs your heart of the Q10 Enzime, that is NECESSARY for healthy heart function. Your recovery will be faster, and more important, your heart will be healther. In fact, EVERYONE should be taking at least 100MG of it every day. Wishing and praying for your speedy recovery. :clap:

Good luck, scook! We'll be praying for you!:pray2:

Thanks guys - I definitely appreciate the prayers, had a good sized crew here praying too.

They say it went pretty much perfectly and today, two days post op, all of the tubes and wires are out and you’re right phat, I’m not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The little machine they have me inhale through indicates that my lung capacity is less than a third of what it was a week ago but say it’s due to swelling do stuff in my chest that got beat up during surgery and some fluid buildup in my lungs. If I follow instructions and exercise enough but not too much they say that will clear up.

Now if you guys would chase some of those fish you’re catching back there out to the northwest, the V might get a workout this season. I think our
Columbia River Salmon have all gone to heaven, they’re sure now around here anymore.

Destroyer, I’ll check with my doc about that stuff - thanks for the tip.

Thanks again for the prayers - it’s good to be back among the living.

Here are a few articles about CoQ10. The first one is written by the Mayo Clinic. Of course NO doctor, hospital or anyone associated with healthcare is going to definitely say in writing that it 100% works, etc etc etc. We live in a litigious society now and a statement like that will bring a flock of lawyers looking to make a quick buck. I can only really go by my own experience, so here's the facts in my case.
1) The heart has 4 chambers, 2 Atrial and 2 Ventricle. Blood flows into the top chambers (Atrial) and then down to the lower (Ventricle) chambers where it is pumped out into the body to begin the cycle again.
2) Not all the blood pumped into the lower chambers is expelled. This is normal. Most people expel about 50-65% normally.
3) When I had my first episode of Atrial Fibrillation, after they corrected it, they checked to see what my heart was expelling.
4) I was at 21%. Close (very close) to complete heart failure. In fact, my doctor put me on a device, a portable heart defibrillator, that I wore that would automatically shock my heart to try and get it started again if necessary. (scary times indeed)
5) My brother, who is a chemist, told me about a man that is credited with discovering what CoQ10 does, and told me to start using it. I did some research, found out what the normal dosage (100-200 mg) was and started taking 500MG per day.
6) At the end of a month I was off the device, and at the end of 3 months my heart was expelling at 50%. I now take 300MG daily and at my last checkup a month ago my heart is expelling at 54.5%. (Not bad for a 75 year old). (Better than most). So that's my story. The stuff really is wonderful for everyone, not only for ppl with heart conditions.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-sup...0/art-20362602

https://www.webmd.com/diet/supplemen...ymeq10-coq10#1

Good job! Glad to hear it!

Destroyer - I’ll definitely be reading those articles. With a new and probably my one and only grandson, just 8 months old, I’m very motivated to get to peak performance (for a lot of years). My grandfather, the carpenter, furniture maker, boat builder (the one I really identified with) died of a heart attack just when I was getting going as a very green young carpenter and it kills me that I didn’t get the chance to learn from him. I want to be there for my little guy as long as I can be useful, and of course do some other things too.

The doc said after the heart fix, I’m good for 30 years - that would put me at 104. That seems about right:pray:

Thanks

Destroyer, I read the articles and will wring out my doc when I see him soon to check on any possible interactions with all of the stuff they’re giving me, which is kind of a lot right now. You can almost see the lawyers looking over their shoulders when they were writing about that stuff.

Came home today - thanks again for the prayers. Got on the couch, got a couple of phone calls out of the way and all of a sudden my eyelids each gained about 100 pounds and I couldn’t keep them open. Napped for about 3 hours ate dinner, washed off the hospital and just hit the sack. I can’t say enough good about the hospital staff but it’s really nice to be home.

Long road back to previous strength but it’s nice to be on that road.

Scook , i'm glad everything went well for you and that your home. Rest and frame of mind are very important .Best of luck !!

\

Great that you're back home. you should recoup much faster there, and much more comfortably too. Prays sent for your continued recovery. :clap:

Many thanks!

Good news scook. Take it easy while u can, walking and naps are your friend and no lifting anything heavy.

Scook, Glad to hear everything went well. Gotta take care of the old ticker. Hope you have a quick recovery!

Overdid a little today - felt kind of lousy for a while - good reminder to go easy. More loafing tomorrow:sleep:

Sportsmen's Show
 

Scott, are you going this year? We're driving from La Grande on Wednesday early enough for the opener and then home late Thursday afternoon. I'll buy you a Lipitor shake with a side of Mylanta if you're around. Let me know.
XXL (aka Norm)

Glad to hear that you're recovering well! :clap: