-200 and DX: Gallstones

First, this is me in the first goal dress I ever bought myself, when I was trying to get my weight down from nearly 440 pounds.

200 pounds later, I can wear this without any problems.  I’ll actually have to have the bodice taken in a little bit pretty soon.

-200 pounds later.

Today I had a 9-month follow-up appointment.

It’s a good thing, too.

As I was talking with the PA about how I’d been feeling, I was having the same abdominal pains I’d had earlier in the week:  dull, intermittent pain under my ribcage on my right side.

He said, “It’s good that you are here.  Let me go get the doctor.”

I could hear the PA say to him, “I think Mrs. F needs to have her gallbladder out.”

My heart sank.  But I also knew this was a distinct possibility.  The development of gallstones is not an uncommon side effect of rapid weight loss.  And being as I’ve lost nearly 160 pounds in 10 months…well, it was inevitable.

The doctor who’d seen me at my 6-month appointment came in and asked me what was going on, so I told him what I’d told the PA about the pain I was having, about my elevated liver enzymes in January and February, and that I was gassy.

He said, “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…those are classic symptoms of cholelithiasis.”

I told him that my PCP had said if the possibility of stones became real, she’d order an ultrasound.  I decided against going to see her since I was going to the surgeon’s office anyway.  So the doc ordered an ultrasound and said we would go from there.  He asked me when I would like to have surgery and I explained that my window of time was pretty narrow.

Long story short, I am having an ultrasound in 2 weeks.  I will likely have surgery before the end of the school year, but before I head out to grade AP exams.  Hopefully it will also be before graduation as well.  Ideally I’d like to do it right before Memorial Day weekend so I can have time to recover but we’ll see–my district’s policy doesn’t allow us to take the day before or after a holiday off without financial penalty.

There is never a good time to be sick, but I have to take care of this lest it impact my health more negatively than it already is.  The last thing I want is an infected gallbladder.

I wonder how having my gallbladder out will affect my weight loss since I will need to eat less fat than I do now.  I also wonder how this will affect my protein intake.  Guess these are questions to ask the doctor who does my surgery.  I will cross those bridges when I come to them.

In the meantime, I need to prepare things for the remainder of the school year in the event that I have surgery before school lets out.  Fun times…