More than you ever wanted to know about the gallbladder, mine in particular...

And here it is, folks, the post none of you have been waiting for and one I never thought I would be writing (at least before the age of 50)... Turns out I do, in fact, have gallstones. Not just one but many. According to the cute, super nice ultrasound technician, I am "plein de calculs biliaires" (full of gallstones). Kind of gross, huh? And bizarre. Who knew? Although my grandmother had gallstones at age 35 (I'm only 8 years early), and I HAVE been known to love me some cheese and eggs and other super fatty cholesterol-high foods... But for all those of you who want to point your finger at France and French food and blah, blah, blah, apparently gallstones take 5-20 years to become large enough to be a problem so this whole business started a long, long time ago.

Since I'm trying to look on the bright side of all this, I'll start at the beginning because it's kind of a funny story. Basically, immediately following my brother's departure (psychosomatic maybe?) I had intense pain in my abdomen out of nowhere. It was unlike anything I have ever felt before. I couldn't move or get comfortable and even breathing was painful. My innards felt like they were being squeezed into a tiny little ball and then jumped up and down on over and over by some hugely fat person. It lasted for maybe 20 minutes and then randomly disappeared. I was mostly just relieved that it was gone, thought it was something I had eaten at dinner, and went back to sleep since it was still some ungodly hour of the morning. I felt a little off all day though and so didn't eat much and just laid low. As I was finally getting dressed and getting ready to go to dinner at a friend's house, I had another attack. I got back in my PJs, cancelled the dinner plans, and crawled into bed with my computer to do some preliminary research. After another attack a couple hours later, I was convinced that I had appendicitis and was going to die in my sleep with a burst appendix and no one was going to find me until my roommate stumbled upon my rotting body when she came back from vacation. But I decided not to panic and to just try to see a doctor the next day.

I woke up on Monday feeling okay but scared to eat. I should have called the doctor whose number I had right away, but you always forget how painful and scary something is when it's not happening and I didn't know how to describe my symptoms in French and I just kind of hoped they would disappear on their own. So I didn't call until after I had another attack that afternoon and the office was already closed. At this point, I had completely freaked myself out with the whole appendicitis diagnosis even though I had, by this time, discovered gallstones on the internet too, which seemed to fit my symptoms better. When I had another attack at 8 that night and it didn't end after a half an hour like the other ones, I called the emergency number (conveniently on our fridge due to some random neighborhood mailing) and blurted out some random French words about pain and stomach and appendicitis. Halfway through the call, the pain went away and I immediately felt stupid. There's a hospital one metro stop away so I told the guy I could get there myself, but he said it was a huge hospital (which it is) and convinced me that it would be easier if I just came in an ambulance. Awesome. So the little ambulance people came and knocked on my door and busted in with a wheelchair and some scary-looking breathing machine asking where Mademoiselle Meyer was. I waved my hand, tried to explain that I had HAD pain but that it was gone, and meekly followed them to the elevator and out to the ambulance feeling extremely stupid. The guy tried to make me feel better about it, but when we got the hospital .2 seconds later (I could have walked really easily), I felt even more embarrassed. First ride in an ambulance - check.

They took all my info., and thankfully I had already received my French social security number allowing me to be covered by their awesome health care program (take some notes, America--seriously!), and then I took a seat in the rather sparse and dingy waiting room. Luckily, I had brought my last English book, Watership Down, with me and so I proceeded to lose myself for 4 hours in the wonderful world of rabbits. Who knew eating clover and digging holes could be so interesting? But yeah, it was a long wait. There were definitely a couple interesting moments to break it up though. Some homeless guy came in about two hours in and just sat himself down in the waiting room and proceeded to talk to himself really loudly. It took the admin. people about 45 minutes to realize he wasn't a family member of a patient or anything so someone came over and asked him to leave. That did NOT make him happy. He ran over to the desk yelling and making obscene gestures and stumbled out. He came back not one, not two, but THREE times in the next half hour. He didn't seem to remember his earlier encounter because he was relatively civil when they asked him to leave the other times. Finally, a security guard came and escorted him out and must have been posted at the outside door or something to make sure he didn't come back. Very random. Then a bit later, a different security guard came over and asked me, in English, if I was the American. (Apparently word travels fast in the ER...) He was from Ethiopia and spoke pretty flawless English. We talked a little while about health care and political differences between France and America, but it was past midnight and I wasn't really up for a serious discussion. Even though I LOOKED fine, I was in the ER for god's sake and really didn't feel fine.

I had two more pain episodes while I was waiting, but when they finally called me in to see a doctor at 1:00 in the morning, I felt okay. The doctor/intern looked like he was maybe 14 and like he'd been working for three weeks straight. I felt really badly for him, especially when he kept having to repeat things and make stupid miming gestures so I could understand his questions. Still don't know if I really understood everything he asked. They had me give them a urine sample, put me on a stretcher, took a ton of blood, hooked me up to a saline water IV (first IV ever - check), and wheeled me out into the hall with a bunch of other mostly older, sicker people since there weren't any rooms left. Suffice it to say, it was really strange and I have never felt more out of place. The hospital was a public hospital (later in the week, I experienced a private hospital and WOW, what a difference!) and was clearly understaffed and kind of dingy. I kept trying not to breathe because I was afraid I would contract something worse than whatever I had. At one point, I had to flag down a nurse because my IV bag was empty and blood seemed to be flowing out of me into the bag, which I didn't think was normal. It wasn't, I guess, because she held the bag up and the blood flowed back in. A little unsettling.

At 2:30, things finally slowed down. They turned the lights in the hall out to let us sleep, I guess, and the nurses and doctors congregated in a little room off the hallway. I had just resigned myself to the fact that I would be spending the night on an uncomfortable stretcher in this creepy hallway next to a random snoring guy when the 14-year-old intern came back and told me everything was normal, that I DIDN'T have appendicitis, and that I could go. He gave me three sheets of paper: a prescription for some pain medication, a doctor's order for an ultrasound, and a doctor's order for a bunch of other tests whose abbreviations I couldn't understand. He told me to find a general doctor to see within the next couple of days and basically peaced out. I wandered back out to the waiting room where they said they had my address and would send a bill (can't wait) and then I just let myself out. Keep in mind, at this point it was 3:30 in the morning, it was raining, I hadn't eaten in two days, and I had just spent 7 hours in the ER and still didn't know what was going on with me. In retrospect, I should have asked them to call a cab or something I guess, but I was exhausted and so tired of attempting to speak French, and I knew that my apartment really wasn't that far away. I did get a little lost trying to get out of the hospital complex and was envisioning horrible scenes of someone jumping out and attacking me in my weakened state, but eventually I found my way to a real street and was home in 10 minutes.

I called the doctor the next morning to set up an appointment and went to see her on Wednesday morning, which was another weird experience. Her office is literally NEXT door to my apartment, which is really convenient, but it's nothing like my doctor in the states. Apparently, the doctor herself answers the phone (no secretary or anything) and I think she might actually live adjacent to the office too. I basically let myself in and went to sit in a waiting room with several other people. The doctor would come in intermittently and without even saying a patient's name, someone would get up and follow her. I guess it was just in order of arrival so I just got up and followed her after everyone who was there before me had come and gone. I described my pain, gave her the hospital papers, and she did a super quick check of my blood pressure and stomach. Then she wrote another note, told me to go to the lab next door for blood work and to some other random hospital for an ultrasound and to call her when I had the results back to make another appointment. Then I paid her 22 euros, which I get reimbursed amazingly enough, and I left, more bewildered than ever, although she did say she agreed that it was probably gallstones. Gee, thanks.

I went over to the lab (also next door: my apartment has turned out to be perfectly located regarding all these health care needs--no wonder there's so many old people in this neighborhood!) and got more blood taken from the nicest lab guy ever who spoke English to me and said that it was going to be kind of expensive but he wouldn't cash my check until I'd come back to tell him I'd been reimbursed by the government. So cute! Then I called the ultrasound hospital and got an appointment for the next day. Still wasn't sure what to eat and what not to so I just didn't really. My internet searching kept turning up varying things. All of them said to steer clear of foods high in fat but some also said to not eat citrus fruits and some said not to drink at all while others said wine actually helped prevent gallstones. So confusing. Not that I was really in the mood to drink though...

Anyway, so yesterday I trekked to the other hospital for the ultrasound, conveniently also just a 10-minute walk. It was a gorgeous, blue sky day, and since I hadn't had any pain since Monday, I sort of convinced myself that everything had been in my head and I was going to be fine. Riiiiiiiight. The hospital was adorable and clean with a beautiful Christmas tree and a little cafe, and there were no lines and everyone was super friendly. It was a completely different experience from Monday night. Granted, I wasn't in the ER and I really don't know the difference between public and private hospitals here, but there clearly DOES seem to be a difference.

The ultrasound guy was really nice so even though it was kind of strange to be getting an ultrasound with the gel and the whole bit (I kept expecting him to say "And it's a healthy, little girl!" although I would have DIED if he had...), I wasn't too weirded out. Of course, then he said that everything was normal except that I definitely had gallstones and a lot of them and would probably need to have my gallbladder out. No one wants to be told they're full of weird, little yellow, cholesterol, bile deposits OR that they might have to give up an organ, even if it's not particularly vital. I got my ultrasound, paid some money (that I also get reimbursed for), and walked back home in a bit of a daze. I then proceeded to stalk the shit out of "gallbladder surgery" on-line, which was both reassuring and not. It's one of the easiest and most common surgeries done today, and they usually do a laparoscopic surgery instead of opening you up entirely. Most people recover and are back to work within a week without any further problems. But it's still surgery and it's still giving up an organ that stores bile, which I would rather have stored than roaming around elsewhere in my body, and there are still possible complications before, during, and after surgery. The short story is: who wants to be thinking about this when they're 27 years old and in FRANCE?!?!?!? What if I can never eat fatty foods again?!??! How can I live here without being able to eat cheese? I mean, celebrating New Year's Eve last night (speaking of which, Happy New Year--yay 2010!!!) without being able to eat the crepes and raclettes all around me or drink champagne was a little bit brutal, I'm not gonna lie...

But okay, it could be a lot worse. And at least I'm in France and not some random other country without excellent health care and at least I have health insurance because in the U.S., even with my good health insurance from my job at Houghton, I would be out a good chunk of money from deductibles/co-pays/etc. And at least I don't have anything hugely important and amazing coming up in the near future that this surgery, if I do it, would jeopardize. I mean, really, if I'm going to have to get my gallbladder out, this is PERFECT timing! Bring it on, gallstones!