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#1 2016-12-22 10:39:27

emstorm73
Tipsy
Registered: 2010-02-25
Posts: 2

Where I've been...

This is Eric Storm.  (I don't have my primary login info on my phone.)

If any of you have tried to get a hold of me this week, I promise I'm not ignoring you. I had asked someone to post this info for me, but that didn't happen for whatever reason.

I have been in the hospital since early Monday morning due to severe abdominal pain.  After extensive testing, they have decided it is necessary to remove my gall bladder. That procedure is scheduled for later today.

However things turn out, someone will post an update about this later today.

Eric Storm

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#2 2016-12-22 12:58:40

Freon22
Wasted
Registered: 2011-08-17
Posts: 123

Re: Where I've been...

Sorry to hear your in the hospital. I will keep you in my prays, hope everything turn out ok.


“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

― Abraham Lincoln

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#3 2016-12-23 00:43:20

Jefferson
Completely Blotto
From: East Coast, USA
Registered: 2006-12-03
Posts: 449

Re: Where I've been...

I have been asked to notify everyone that Eric had surgery today. He had his gall bladder removed. The surgery went well and, barring unexpected complications, he will be home tomorrow.

And we will all breathe a sigh of relief. 3dsmile

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#4 2016-12-23 06:40:58

Black Rose
Evil Bar Wench
From: The Edge of Nowhere
Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 164

Re: Where I've been...

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Eric!


Black Rose

"Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins." – Neil Gaiman

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#5 2016-12-23 06:45:29

Barbarian3165
Completely Blotto
Registered: 2015-02-11
Posts: 329

Re: Where I've been...

Take your time and do what the doctors tell you to do.  Your health comes first, and we can wait for Way-7 or other stories.  There are, I hope, enough other stories on the site to keep us busy while you recover.

Good luck, God Bless and Merry Christmas.

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#6 2016-12-24 00:58:23

Eric Storm
Pub Owner
From: New Port Richey, FL
Registered: 2006-09-12
Posts: 5745
Website

Re: Where I've been...

Update:

I'm home now.

This was my first overnight trip to a hospital.  When I decide to do something, I don't go half-way, oh no.  I go for the full treatment.

So, on Sunday night/Monday morning, I developed "epi-gastric" pains.  (That's a fancy doctor way of saying I had pain right around the spot where your esophagus meets your stomach).  If you've ever had a kidney stone, you'll understand the level of pain we're talking about here.  After about 4 hours of it getting worse instead of better, and a call to my doctor (they have 24/7 on-call service), I went to the ER.

So, that led to first an abdominal ultrasound, then a chest x-ray, and a CAT scan.  After being moved to a "holding area" (since the main hospital was out of bed space), I was then given an echocardiogram.  Apparently, epi-gastric pain can sometimes be a cardiac symptom.  Thankfully, not in my case.

Once I was given a bed upstairs, there was the abdominal MRI, the chemical stress test (as opposed to the one where they make you run on the treadmill), and a fun procedure called an ERCP.  (That's short for Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatogram... or something close to that.)

After all of that, and taking out enough blood to satisfy Lydia's entire Travaysal family for a month, they determined that I had gall stones.  And not just one or two gall stones, but a whole shitload of them.  The pain I had felt was due to one of the stones blocking the bile duct.  Solution?  Well, they removed the blockage during the ERCP, but with that many stones, it was just a matter of time before the problem returned.  Real solution:  Remove the gallbladder. 

Do you have ANY idea how much fun it is for a person with generalized anxiety and IBS to consider the first major surgery of his life for almost an entire day before it happens?  Needless to say, by the time they came to get me yesterday, I was more than ready to get the procedure over with.

The surgery went without problem.  I have pictures to prove it.  (I have some strange fascination with them, despite the fact that they're totally gross...)

So, after a day of post-op observation to make sure I wasn't going to keel over and die on them, they let me out on parole... er, I mean they discharged me.  I'm uncomfortable and in minor pain, which is normal for the day after a "cholecystectomy" (ooh, another big word!  Yay!  3dtongue ).  The pain, they say, should fade over the next 3-4 days.  I'm supposed to follow up with my primary care doc and the surgeon within the next couple weeks.  Hopefully, that will be the end of it.

Strangely, I am the third person in my family who have had their gallbladder removed in the last year and a half.  Before that, I don't think I'd known anyone who'd had it done. 

*shrugs*

Anyway, I will try to get WAY7-1 completed before the new year.  I don't have that much left to write on it.  I'm not, however, going to kill myself over it, so if it's a couple days late, then it's a couple days late.  Hospital visits give me a Hall Pass for being tardy.

3dtongue

Eric Storm


Please Remember:  The right to Freedom of Speech does not carry the proviso, "As long as it doesn't upset anyone."  The US Constitution does not grant you the right to not be offended.  If you don't like what someone's saying... IGNORE THEM.
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#7 2016-12-24 04:09:23

Jefferson
Completely Blotto
From: East Coast, USA
Registered: 2006-12-03
Posts: 449

Re: Where I've been...

Welcome home, Eric. Glad everything went well.

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#8 2016-12-24 04:56:51

Fenixreign
Completely Blotto
Registered: 2014-08-02
Posts: 255

Re: Where I've been...

Yeah, after my Gastric Bypass the docs did an Ultrasound on my Gall Bladder and neglected to tell me they should probably remove it based on what they saw.  It's still in there doing either nothing or what gall bladders do.  Either way, it ain't stones (had a kidney stone once that gastric bypass thing and not enough water they said) so nowhere near what you dealt with but the surgery thing I can empathize with ya' on.

P.S.  Oh yeah!  Feel better soon.  WAY 7-1 is definitely less important than your health (especially since I dislike unfinished series and there are too many unanswered questions left in WA) 3dtongue

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#9 2016-12-24 05:48:01

Eric Storm
Pub Owner
From: New Port Richey, FL
Registered: 2006-09-12
Posts: 5745
Website

Re: Where I've been...

Gall bladders do what bladders in general do:  They hold things temporarily.  The gall bladder holds bile produced by the liver until you eat something fatty.  When your intestines sense fat coming through, the gall bladder contracts, sending its load of bile down the biliary duct into the intestine to help digest the fat.

If your gall bladder is loaded with gallstones, this leaves you with the odd chance of it launching a gallstone down the biliary duct instead of bile, and WHAM-O! you have a trip to the ER.

This lesson brought to you by the numbers 3, 7, and the color blue.

Eric Storm


Please Remember:  The right to Freedom of Speech does not carry the proviso, "As long as it doesn't upset anyone."  The US Constitution does not grant you the right to not be offended.  If you don't like what someone's saying... IGNORE THEM.
----
Facebook page

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#10 2016-12-24 09:03:13

Barbarian3165
Completely Blotto
Registered: 2015-02-11
Posts: 329

Re: Where I've been...

Prime numbers and sadness?

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#11 2016-12-25 12:56:18

Crusader
Wasted
From: Madison, WI
Registered: 2007-07-19
Posts: 155

Re: Where I've been...

Damn... Uh well merry Christmas..

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#12 2016-12-28 12:41:15

StoryJunkie
Wasted
Registered: 2010-12-31
Posts: 191

Re: Where I've been...

I feel your pain Eric, I had my gall bladder out several years ago...did you get the fun radioactive isotope drink? After I got mine out, I was off work for a week, once back to work I went to one of the places I delivered to (I worked at a wire recycling center and we sold out steel cuttings to a train wheel manufacturer) that had a radiation detector I had to drive through, I set it off lol....the guard didn't believe it was me and not the load of steel, so he brought out his wand, ran it over the truck and nothing...ran it over me and it went nuts.

Anyway, glad you're home now, and hope you have a quick recovery.

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#13 2016-12-28 19:12:43

Eric Storm
Pub Owner
From: New Port Richey, FL
Registered: 2006-09-12
Posts: 5745
Website

Re: Where I've been...

I had no radioactive materials for my gall bladder... the contrast used during the nuclear stress test might have been radioactive... I've not got a Geiger counter to find out.  3dsmile

Got to sleep lying down for the first time last night.  My back is so much happier...  Office chairs were not meant for sleeping in!

Eric Storm


Please Remember:  The right to Freedom of Speech does not carry the proviso, "As long as it doesn't upset anyone."  The US Constitution does not grant you the right to not be offended.  If you don't like what someone's saying... IGNORE THEM.
----
Facebook page

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#14 2017-01-06 09:51:19

islandman79#
Inebriated
Registered: 2015-01-01
Posts: 42

Re: Where I've been...

emstorm73 wrote:

This is Eric Storm.  (I don't have my primary login info on my phone.)

If any of you have tried to get a hold of me this week, I promise I'm not ignoring you. I had asked someone to post this info for me, but that didn't happen for whatever reason.

I have been in the hospital since early Monday morning due to severe abdominal pain.  After extensive testing, they have decided it is necessary to remove my gall bladder. That procedure is scheduled for later today.

However things turn out, someone will post an update about this later today.

Eric Storm

-

Reply to Eric storm posting:

Wholly ole shit in a bucket bat man... I just got released from the hospital after my 2nd surgery to my leg an foot..

I got out on the 30th dec - happy New Years to yah buddy.
I know it's tuff on you - but if it makes a you feel better, I should tell you I'm fighting to keep my leg an foot attached & at same time I'm about a year away from total kidney failure . On top of a cancer diagnosis and a divorce request at same time.   Reading keeps my mind a little sane while I await for the end of my life as I know it.   Keep yourself strong and hope you recover soon.

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