It’s a boy!
No, actually it’s my gallbladder. I’ve had such a crazy week. Monday, you’ll recall, was my first acupuncture session. It didn’t really have any immediately noticeable effect, I thought. Then Tuesday I had one of my worst days of stomach pain in the past two months. It grew and grew all day til Leanne finally sent me home (in the hailstorm) because I looked like I was going to barf. I went straight to my doctor and told him that the current plan of “bland diet” plus Nexium wasn’t working. He agreed. At this point, if it was actually a stomach issue I should’ve been getting better, and I’m not. So he took me off the Nexium and started the next round of tests. I got blood drawn to check for liver function and thyroid issues, and he recommended an ultrasound to check out the other organs that could be causing the gastritis. (Hence, the picture of my baby gallbladder.) I was in such pain I considered canceling the next acupuncture session; it obviously wasn’t doing me any good. But then something amazing happened Wednesday: I woke up feeling great. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t feeling any strong pain; it was that I actually had energy and felt happy all day long. You don’t realize how precious those days are until you have two months without one. And Wednesday was nearly as good! I really don’t know what to attribute it to. I haven’t changed my diet radically, and by all rights I should feel worse after stopping the Nexium. But I don’t. I even had an APPLE on Thursday (which I’d been shunning out of fear of the acidity) and I was fine. So I went into my second acupuncture session feeling skeptical but also more than a little hopeful. After telling her everything that had happened, I got back on the table for another round of five needles. Two in my elbows and one in the center of my belly, again, but also two more either side of my navel. (Looking down, my belly button appeared to have antennae. Take me to your leader.) Friday was the ultrasound and I’ll admit I was feeling some fear. What if he finds a tumor? In the end everything checked out okay, with one minor exception: there’s a dark spot on my right kidney, and the technician thought it might be the formation of a stone. OH, GREAT. (My pregnant sister just had one and sent me a long, excruciatingly detailed e-mail about the pain she had in passing it.) He recommends I have a CT scan to verify. So I’m a little torn here, actually. On one hand, I have a scheduled gastroscopy in three weeks to investigate the possibility of an ulcer. This is a seriously unpleasant procedure though, and my doctor’d been hoping something else would turn up so I could cancel. A kidney stone though? Would seriously suck. Maybe my magic acupuncture shaman can blast it with some chi or something…