My eyes popped open with an urgency I rarely felt while sleeping. The pain in my upper abdomen was strong this Friday night after Thanksgiving. Nine hours later I was being rolled into the operating room gleefully singing:<\/p>\n
“So long, farewell
\nAuf wiedersehen, goodnight”<\/p>\n
The pre-anesthesia was kicking in but more so was my own belief in trying to find the positive in a bad situation.<\/p>\n
From 1 until 5 am, I tried to clear whatever was causing my pain but to no avail. The pain was constant and increasing. Finally around sunrise, I told Diane “Its not getting any better. I know my body and we need to get to the ER.” She kicked into action and 15 minutes later I was there, hunched over, alternating between sweating and shivering.<\/p>\n
As I checked in the nurse joked – “Bad turkey?” I wished it had been that simple.<\/p>\n
I had gallbladder disease – sounds worse than it is but is still serious. After a slew of high-tech tests and imaging, the Docs said I had a blockage in my gallbladder that was stopping the release of bile into my stomach. The backup had built over time and reached a critical mass that night. The gall bladder was extended, enlarged and generally in a bad mood. The surgeon was more succinct: “It’s rotten.”<\/p>\n
I was presented with several choices: do nothing and see if it corrects itself (unlikely given it was enlarged now), wait until another episode then take care of it (not a good option given what I had just gone through and especially a bad option if it occurred in the middle of a climb) and third: take it out. \u00a0I choose door number three.<\/p>\n
I have had stomach, GI or whatever issues for years. Starting back in high school when I would vomit after every track practice. Then when I started climbing, many expeditions were cut short with intense\u00a0abdominal pain. I was flown off Denali in 2007 with such symptoms only to find no root cause after going through a Mayo Clinic class of tests.<\/p>\n
I made some changes to how I maintained my hydration and nutrition during climbs that seemed to do the trick and I haven’t had any GI issue since 2011. But apparently the calcium stones were slowing growing regardless of my diet and life style.<\/p>\n
This is the time when some readers start to type “Well, Alan, you should have …” and I usually welcome these shared experiences and advice – similar to telling me I shouldn’t use plastic trash bags … \ud83d\ude06 but I’m not sure I’m ready for this at the moment.<\/p>\n
Of course I could eat better, exercise more, not break my leg, be taller, change my hair color, change my genetics …<\/p>\n
But the Docs said about 10% of us get this thing and there was not a lot I could have done. Drum roll for those who will now promote the latest probiotic, Dr. Gall’s Bladder treatment, the new North Afghan Diet that is guaranteed to reduce gallbladder stones, ultrasound, light theory and 48 hours of continuous Kenny G music … and more.<\/p>\n
I know your heart is in the right spot but can you hold off a bit?<\/p>\n
This Thursday, I will still have the screws and plates removed from my broken leg. The good news is that they will have to use less\u00a0anesthesia since I’m already under now! (joke).<\/p>\n
I will be laying low in December to recoup from both of these year-end events and enjoying family time and watching football. I just wish Denver had a pro football team.<\/p>\n
In January, I will begin a 24 week exercise program designed by Steve House and Scott Johnston of Uphill Athlete<\/a>. \u00a0It’s a standard program available to anyone. It will give me a carrot to encourage my overall recovery to fitness with the stick coming from the hole in my\u00a0abdomen to remind me that I can always do any things better.<\/p>\n I don’t have any climbing plans for 2018, but I’d like to be ready if an opportunity presents itself, perhaps in the autumn?<\/p>\n By now, if you are still reading!! \ud83d\ude42 you might be think, Wow Alan, you have had a tough 2017. Well yes and no. Of course the broken leg<\/a> in February and now this in November were unplanned and put a dent in my plans. But the good outweighs the bad by a mile this year.<\/p>\n Diane and I formalized our relationship and have built a home with Cory. I have used the incidents to build a positive foundation for the next phase in my life. I have deepened my understand of who I am in the process for dealing with these events. My true friends have become even closer and my new friends have made contributions I never imagined.<\/p>\n I furthered my connection with The Cure Alzheimer’s Fund<\/a> in October and my Summit Coach<\/a> business has taken off and I find great satisfaction in helping others achieve their dreams.<\/p>\n Yes, 2017 has been a good year – and it’s not over!<\/p>\n Climb On! My eyes popped open with an urgency I rarely felt while sleeping. The pain in my upper abdomen was strong this Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"9 hours after waking up with severe abdomen pain, I found myself being rolled into the operating room this Thanksgiving. Another life lesson in 2017.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[123],"tags":[478,497],"class_list":["post-28209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musings","tag-alan-arnette-broken-leg","tag-musings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Alan-Gallbaldder.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2017<\/h3>\n
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"