#Spoonie Update: Gallbladder

 Other medical topic posts I've written can be found at this tag: Spoonie. 
Link to my youcaring account to help pay my surgery costs is here. 

Surgeon Meet and Greet:

My boyfriend used his check this week to help me get to the surgeon. Which means we couldn't buy groceries. But, thankfully,  we didn't have bills to pay this week.

If you follow me on Twitter I update frequently about my medical issues quicker than here.

Based on the HIDA Scan results and a conversation with my primary care physician I knew I had to have surgery.

But I held on to the idea of not having surgery because scans and things can be wrong sometimes, y'know?

Waiting Games:

We were at the facility for an hour. My sister came with me and I asked her to go into the room because I tend to forget half of everything. The hour? Most of it was simply waiting for things to happen. 

Filled out paperwork. There was a page where it wanted me to circle everything that I have had or have...and explain WHY I had them. I stared at the page then took it to the office lady, "If I explain on this paper....you won't be able to read anything on it. There'd be too much stuff."

My sister recorded the interaction I had with the surgeon. It took 2:29 minutes and he was gone. And, the first part of that two minutes is sitting quietly waiting for him to appear/talk to us. TWO MINUTES y'all of interacting with this surgeon and I had to pay $336 for this visit.

Financial Lady Interaction.. or .. well, lack of interaction:

Then, the woman who was supposed to talk to me about financing this surgery.. she was out to lunch. She was supposed to call me back yesterday to start payment arrangements. NO call yesterday so I'm going to have to call them and work that out.

The Good then the Bad:

He talks about the good things that are supposed to be involved with your gallbladder. He started the conversation this way so I thought I was not going to need surgery. Maybe the scan and results were wrong after all and I don't need the surgery?

He started talking about common abnormality rate of gallbladders. I was, "OK, mine's probably at the number he keeps tossing out. This doesn't sound bad."

Him: Your abnormality rate is 20%. You need to have the surgery and remove it. Do you have any questions?
Me:  So, the pain I'm experiencing due to my gallbladder will stop?
Him: Yes, but none of the pain due to your arthritis will stop. Only the pain related to your gallbladder. If that's the only question... he says as he's walking out the door.

This man did not even let me sit there and process the information. I know it's not FULLY life changing information but damn. That visit I found out your gallbladder can burst just like your appendix. Like, okay, I know things can go bad with your organs BUT I wasn't prepared for this extra information.

Anyway, this is my surgeon. 

He sits with you for a little under 2 minutes and then leaves before you can form an idea of questions you'd like to ask. I'm super not excited about working with this man. But I don't have health insurance and this seems to be my only route to get it removed.

As he leaves my sister jumps out of her seat: 

We need to know the possibilities of reaction due to the medication you take! We needed to know if there's negative impact on you due to your Rheumatoid Arthritis.

I was, "You should have asked while he was in here!" laughing because we thought we would have more time to process/create questions. We weren't expecting this to end so quickly! So, told her I can ask all of these when we get there.