Last Friday I went to the emergency room with terrible pain in my back and my chest.  I had soaked through my clothing with sweat, was hot and shaky and in a large amount of pain.  This is the second time in 8 weeks this has happened.  The first time was at the end of May, just before Ryan and I left for the Dominican Republic.  I truly thought I was having a heart attack.  The ED thought I had reflux and sent me home.  The difference this time was that in the middle of the night it happened again, only I was vomiting.  I also noticed my urine was very dark.  I waited until Monday to see a Dr. because I already had my annual exam scheduled for that day.  I figured maybe they would tell me what my problem was.  I hadn't been feeling great anyway for a while so I was in need of an intervention.

On Monday I requested a urine analysis and went over to the hospital to have all my labs done.  I still was in a lot of pain in my back and my urine was getting darker and darker.  On Tuesday my labs were sent to my primary care physician.  She was on vacation until Thursday but sent me to do more labs immediately.  She then scheduled me to come in first thing on Thursday.  Since I had my labs I asked one of the physicians in my department to glance at them, just so I could get an idea of what could be wrong since nobody would tell me my possibilities.  He scheduled me immediately for an ultrasound.  The ultrasound confirmed I had stones in my common bile duct and gallbladder.  I had the radiologist call my results immediately to my family practice physician who scheduled me for and ERCP and surgery the next day.  Unfortunately the ERCP could not be done until Wed PM so I had to wait for surgery on Thursday morning.  It all happened really quickly and it's hard to believe it's already been 72 hours since surgery.

Because of this incident, I did not get to run the 10K I have been training for the past 4 months.  I haven't blogged in a while but I have been running, and running, and running, to train for this 10K.  I hated running at first and since I haven't been able to do it since Tuesday, it's truly driving me nuts.  I use it as stress relief and it's the one thing I do each day for myself and nobody else (although the benefits of my running are felt by others since I am more at ease).  So, I cried when it was finalized I would not be able to run my race.  I only wanted to prove to myself that it could be done.  There are other runs so I will just work towards another one.  I thought about running the BIX but that is this coming weekend and hopefully I will just be getting back into running by then. 

Until then, I have nurse Ryan and nurse Henry taking care of me.  I have four incisions in my belly and by the end of the day, I am pretty sore.  I just have to use muscles that I haven't used in a while or that I am having to use differently so they are sore.  Otherwise I am recuperating well and hope to be good as new in a month!