Before I continue on, I just wanted to say even though I had a lot of misery throughout the pregnancy, and that was just a a small glimpse of the events, I did love carrying her, cuddling my belly as she grew, nurturing her and talking away and reading to her as she developed.  My favourite story to read was “Oh the Places You’ll Go” By Dr. Seuss and funny enough when she was a toddler she loved Dr. Seuss, but hey who doesn’t.  The love of a child that you are nurturing is unlike any other happiness I’ve ever felt and if I was able to, I’d do it all over again, even knowing what I would be up against. I felt like I had to fit this in here I didn’t want the story to end on a sour note, I did love having her as a part of me, it is an experience I will always cherish.

So now my baby girl  was born and the “pregnancy induced” gallbladder attacks took up a new lease and decided to stick around.  I was on allergy medicine, pain medicine and doing my best to take vitamins that I thought would help. Good ol’ Centrum, but even they hurt to digest, and it wasn’t the fault of the Centrum tablet they are a great supplement, but the pain meds were brutalizing my digestive organs. I was told its best to take less of something stronger then more of something of lesser strength, and so I was introduced to Tylenol 8’s. They consist of 325 mg of Acetaminophen, 15mg of Caffeine and 8 mg of Codeine. I was told they would be better for me because the caffeine will help the Acetaminophen, Tylenol, to react faster in my body and I won’t have to take so many because the codeine was stronger and would be a more reliant and faster reducing pain reliever, and so it was.

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I’ve just had to take a bit of a break here because rehashing this part knowing where it led has made me shed a few silent tears. But, it gets better, just not yet for a while.

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So…the gallbladder was deteriorating and I’m now being sent for MRI’s for my head and ultrasounds for my gallbladder. (A bit later I will let you know why ultrasounds for gallbladder attacks are useless). My husband was getting more worried cause his once outgoing wife is starting to become frail. Once again, I was told it has to be what I’m eating and to stop drinking, but this time I fought back…”I don’t drink and I am as healthy of an eater as I can be!!”..eating my veggies, fruits, cereals and meats. I couldn’t eat out even if I had wanted too. Then I was advised if I’m not a “drinker” (not my words), then I should start a low fat diet and that will help the situation. Everything low fat. Low fat bread, cheese, milk, meats, any package that says low fat is what will help me.   Wow, did things get progressively worse after this.

It was bad enough being sick at home but now it was too serious to stay home during the attacks, and the emergency room became my home away from home. Now I would be given Demerol and Gravol for the pain, which gave me 2 days worth of numb feelings before the pain returned to my stomach and head.  When I say stomach, that was the consensus at that time.  That the pain was from the lining of my stomach being hurt from the over production of acid and the gallbladder being so irritated from foods, that I had to try to isolate.  So the only recourse was to start taking Advil… 3 times a day for 2 weeks… to help the irritated gallbladder and stop eating anything that made me hurt.  If I was nauseated, I was to take Gravol when needed. WHAT???!! Oh boy, alright I guess. Tylenol 8’s with Advil and Gravol in the mix, who was I to question?

It became a blessing to have an hour feeling numb because everything else hurt.

                                    H……U……R…..T…….HURT!

The look in my husbands eyes as I would take the cocktail of 2-3 Tylenol 8’s, Advil and Gravol, had me feeling pretty depressed, and this was not even at the top of the hill before it all fell apart…and before the pain really started.