Temporarily Out of Commission

I'm finally able to sit up at the PC long enough to post!

Almost two weeks ago I started having terrible abdominal pains that I figured were a severe bout of IBS. They got better after 2-3 days (four times as long as past experience) and I spent the weekend feeling almost normal. Unfortunately the pain came back with a vengeance a week ago. To my credit, I did call my doctor's office for meds and told them the story, but I think any normal person would have expressed more alarm and they didn't take me too seriously.

There is nothing you can do for IBS but wait for it to pass. So I waited three more days in pain that approximated the later stages of labor...yes, I am that much of an idiot! I woke up early Thursday morning in a fever and knew then it was not IBS.

Off to the hospital at last. Thursday afternoon I had emergency gall bladder surgery and it was a rather rough one since I had a gall stone over one inch in size and the organ was pretty much a wreck. Recuperation is going to be slow. (Interestingly though, I did feel better after the surgery than before!)

I don't usually go on about personal stuff on this blog, but I wanted to share the painful lesson I learned. For all you stoic types out there who are like me, who put up with pain to an unreasonable degree, don't take any chances! I think about myself getting up at 2:00 a.m. that Thursday shaking so hard I could barely walk, turning on the PC to look up the nearest emergency room covered by my insurance, then waiting another half hour so my husband could get a bit more sleep...I mean how crazy is that?

Sometimes you have to put yourself first and value your own needs a bit more. Maybe you're good at managing suffering--be it physical or emotional--but taking that too far doesn't help anybody. You're just as valuable as the next person so treat yourself as well as the next person!

I learned the hard way that tolerance for pain isn't always an asset.

Will return to your normally scheduled blog as soon as I'm up to it! And I won't rush it... :-)