Let’s see, well, throughout all of this, eating food was getting harder and harder. Even though there was no intense pain like I used to have from the gallbladder there was always a soreness to the top of my stomach like something was protruding through my skin. There was even times you could see a little buldge like a tiny fist just sitting in between my ribs, and even though I didn’t have any spare tires it sure felt like a boulder was just bellow my diaphragm and when I would sit it became quite uncomfortable. I thought I was doing ok even though my diet was very restricted, the gallbladder attacks weren’t as routine as they were up to a year ago. What I did not realize was that the pain medication was masking the growing of “Mount GallBladder” that was soon about to erupt.

With eating becoming more restricted and the imminent migraines progressing whenever noise was louder then a whisper, any function that included people, food and fun became a nightmare. I would have to gracefully decline family and friend events including Easter suppers, Christmas Eve gatherings, Christmas Day gatherings, BBQ’s, Birthday Parties, unless I wanted to fill my body with prescription pain medication to the result of numbness, which would then end up as me not being me. On one occasion during the summer members of my husbands family was home visiting and happened to come by to visit us on a very nice summers day. Unfortunately, nice days don’t always produce headache free days and on this certain day even the pillow hurt my head. Welllll, I couldn’t stay in my room all day that would look very rude so out popped the codeine meds. I’m not exactly sure but the last I remembered I was on a half hour regiment of Atasol 30’s. By around 3-4pm I thought I could sing…and sing well… and I sang loud. I blew the dust off my 6 string and wowed the audience in my backyard. For some reason the crowd started to dwindle and I thought, hmm young crowd today, how can they not like “Brown Eyed Girl”… like seriously. Well it was more then likely the looped blue eyed girl crooning from the stump in the backyard they weren’t so appreciative of…lol. It was a very proud moment in my life….NOT. I got through the day but the next two ended up as detox days. Win some, you lose some, go figure.

The newest symptom would be when the headaches where approaching and leaving I would be FROZEN! A bitter to the bone frozen…an Elsa Frozen, (anyone with kids knows who Elsa is).  I just wanted to “Let it go… let the cold go… can’t take the cold anymooorre.”  I would wrap up in electric blankets with leggings on, flannel long sleeve nightgowns with a sweater over top and adorning my little winters hat, while piling on even more blankets…still shivering. There was no way to warm up until the headache left completely. Hours and hours later when the pain started to ease up, a warm feeling would cascade down from the top of my head filling every vein in decent until it reached my toes. You could literally play pass the parcel with me for a half an hour and still would not find the first layer. I knew the medications took away the pain but there was definitely more happening.

I found out a major cause of all the symptoms one evening in a most unpleasant way.   I was watching one of the only shows of may be 4 that I watch, Dr. Oz, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I said to my daughter, “Honey, I really need a 10 minute nap then we will get supper.” I passed out almost instantly and I’m not sure if I even finished talking to my daughter before I had slunk into unconsciousness. About 30 minutes later I woke with a horrible feeling. My arms hands and toes were tingling, I had zero energy and I knew in a moments notice my stomach was about to unload its contents. I tried to get up off the couch and my head was fuzzy and I couldn’t see through my eyes it was like when the screen on the TV goes black and white with fuzzy dots. On pilot, I made it to the washroom and MOUNT GALLBLADDER ERUPTED!! I could not stop it. It was constant and scary. My body was draining any liquid from any inappropriate opening it could find. I became severely dehydrated and could not pick myself up off the floor. After 2 hours in the washroom with no stopping to the vomiting, I banged on the inside of the bathroom door to my daughter who was distraught by this time, to run downstairs and get Nanny. When my husband’s mother came up I asked her to call the ambulance, then call my husband who was in the middle of leaving for a week-long skidoo trip. I felt horrible having to call him back but there was noooo choice in the matter. When they got him on the phone he stayed on the line with our daughter to try and calm her before the paramedics arrived. The paramedics got to the house about 5 minutes before my husband did. I could hardly get 2 steps before involuntarily vomiting the whole way. There was nothing left just sludge, literally a horrible, putrid, grey sludge was coming up. The one ambulance attendant was sooo incredibly nice and helpful while the other was like Bad Cop… in Sludge Town, she was not impressed.

Well we managed to get to the emergency room and once they had the IV inserted and medication to calm my stomach took control, the shivers came about. My husband had about 10 warming blankets on me and I was still cold and really scared. I’ve never felt so drained, dehydrated and bitterly frozen before. After a full night in the emergency and 2 and a half IV bags later the emergency room doctor said, “That was not your gallbladder, you have liver damage.” I was sent home with more pain meds, Toradol, on top of the already codeine medication I was taking with medicine to keep my stomach-gallbladder-liver area from contracting and inducing anymore vomiting. It took almost 5-7 days for me to get over that episode and let me tell you I am no lightweight, no matter my pain or nausea level I’m on my feet doing my chores.

The emergency room doctor set up a CT scan for my liver within a few weeks, and 2 days after the scan my family doctor called asking for me to come in that afternoon to see him. My report was back.