Welcome back to my blog! This post is going to be a long one, please stick around until the end, you never know you might need some words of encouragement. These past few weeks have been extremely difficult for me. I've been through many tests to figure out this stomach pain I've constantly had since May. None of the doctors believed it was real pain, many of them said it was just in my head, or anxiety. This was obviously not the case. My Mom did plenty of research and found that my symptoms are exactly those of a Gallbladder Disease. P.S. I say we often, meaning my Mom and I! :)
Eventually a doctor agreed to prescribe a HIDA (hi-daa) Scan. This is a scan where the technologist can see how your gallbladder is working, and if it's contracting or not. They do this by injecting a dye through an IV. This dye can be seen on the scan, and you can actually see it moving through the gallbladder and intestines. May I mention this 'special dye' was TERRIBLY difficult to get a hold of. They have a nation wide shortage of this dye in the U.S.A, so we had to get it shipped from India. This took about 3 weeks, of more constant suffering.
Below is a picture from Google of a HIDA Scan machine.
We received the test results, and it showed that my gallbladder is working at 94%. A healthy gallbladder has an extraction rate of about 30%-70%, mine is obviously way to high. However, we were told everything was perfectly fine and I did not need to remove my gallbladder. We were convinced otherwise. After some more thorough research, we found that having hyperactive gallbladder (works too quickly) is just as bad as having a hypoactive gallbladder (works too slowly.) My mom asked to see a younger Paediatric Gastroenterologist (a stomach doctor who specialises in children.) He reviewed my test results and symptoms and came to the conclusion that I do indeed need a surgery to remove my gallbladder. This is a very rare disease in children like me.
This doctor also decided that I needed to have a sleep study done, for my insomnia. This was done last night and I can tell you it wasn't fun at all! They put you into a hospital room that looks like a hotel room to make you as comfortable as possible. In my case, there was a full bed, and a pull out bed for my mom to sleep on. They then attach many, many, MANY wires to all different parts of your body e.g Legs, Face, Scalp, Stomach. These wires are attached with a gooey, blue adhesive. Due to my sensitive skin this 'goo' burned and itched the entire night.
This is me getting all my wires attached, what a joy! I definitely needed some cupcakes here! :P
Here is a lovely photo of me with all my wires attached, I was grumpy because it was burning my skin! I think this needs to be a medical magazine cover! LOL! My hair is CRAZY!
The wires were very tight, so on an already painful stomach, the straps made the pain worse. Overall, I believe I slept about 2 hours throughout the entire night. I don't recommend a sleep study for people with anxiety. Knowing they were recording my sleep, the wires that got tangled, and the fact I was in the hospital made it VERY tough to fall asleep. The cool part was that the nurse was able to tell I was dreaming by my brain activity, now we just need a machine to rewatch dreams! Wouldn't that be cool?!
To make up for all the hospital visits, my mom brought me to an arcade today! I had lots of luck and kept winning plenty of prizes. To see the things I won check out my Instagram @elilovessparkles. I know my story isn't the most dreadful, or life threatening, but it is definitely a life changing one. I hope to help people who are suffering from anxiety, depression and panic attacks, like I am. I know what it's like to have doctors, and others not believe you. All you desperately want is to find what is causing you pain, not knowing adds a lot of anxiety to your already full plate. DO NOT give up, you WILL find what it is, and it WILL get better! Please if anyone needs advice, or wants to talk DM me on Instagram, Twitter, or visit my YouTube channel.
Thank you for reading another one of my blogposts, I know it was pretty long, but hopefully now, you understand what is happening in my life, and why I'm not uploading or blogging as often as I would like! I love you all!
xoxoxo- Eli
