My Family

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

What is up with the world when my sister spends the day at the Ren-Fair? I thought I raised her better. I might have to plan an intervention.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Only 1% of people have this condition. My mom won the lottery. Naturally, my mother doesn't want to do anything about. She's had this longstanding fear of dying on the operating table. So.... she's still resisting but has decided to maybe possibly go ahead with an MRI. Maybe. Damn doctors. What do they know? Let's not talk about the dark mass that keeps showing up next to the gall bladder either.

Porcelain gallbladder means the wall of the gallbladder has been calcified to a hard and bluish white texture resembling porcelain ceramic. This medical condition primarily results from a chronically inflamed organ. When many gallstones collect in the gallbladder, it becomes irritated, and precipitates calcification that might necessitate surgery.

To understand the process that creates porcelain gallbladder, we must understand how this digestive organ works. The 4" (10 cm) gallbladder stores bile, a kind of acid, that digests fats in what we eat. The cystic duct transfer bile made in the liver to the gallbladder. Then the gallbladder stores or passes along the right amount of bile through the common bile duct to the small intestine. When bile doesn't successfully break down fat, perhaps due to a high fat diet, the extra cholesterol can crystallize into gallstones.

Gallstones, even though they are tiny, can lodge in those ducts that carry bile and limit the flow of fluids. A build up of gallstones causes unhealthy blockages that end up inflaming or infecting the entire gallbladder, called cholecystitis. Over time, the wall and lining of the gallbladder thickens and hardens, resulting in porcelain gallbladder. Women are five times as likely as men to suffer from this condition, even though the overall incidence in the general population is less than 1%.

In 90% of the cases of porcelain gallbladder, calcification is the direct result of cholecystitis, but medical experts still don't know exactly how it happens. Since porcelain gallbladder has no early symptoms, it is usually detected by a CT scan, X-ray, or ultrasound being conducted for another reason. Porcelain gallbladder appears as a visible dense sac beside the liver. So far, the only treatment at this late stage of diagnosis is to remove the entire gallbladder. Researchers are still investigating the relationship between porcelain gallbladder and the risk of cancer of the gallbladder, as recently studies have suggested they are not as linked as previously believed.

[thatguy]

Several years ago I came down with a shooting pain in the back. It felt like someone shoved a spear right through me. I spent most of that day and the next throwing up. I went to a doctor who did an ultrasound and he didn't find any gall stones but something he described more like gall "sludge".

His recommendation was to avoid fatty foods, ride it out, and potentially have the gall bladder removed.

Living in Santa Cruz and having friends who are experts in alternative health care, we asked around and one friend recommended this regimen:

3 Day Fast
Start the fast by drinking 1 cup of olive oil (EVOO for you Rachel Ray fans). This was by far one of the hardest things I've tried to swallow...get highest quality olive oil if you can.
Spend the rest of the fast drinking only Apple juice (unfiltered, organic, of course!). Buy a couple of those gallon jugs.
On the third day, end the fast by drinking another cup of olive oil. This one will be harder than the first as the smell and the taste from the first attempt will still be fresh in your mind.

That's it. It seemed to work for me. I still have a gall bladder and I haven't had a relapse so far even though my diet is still about the same.

Can't say if this will help for the Porcelain Gallbladder.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Rachel Ray fans? hock:

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

We're a little bit beyond the medicine stage. The Doctors are telling here she can either have it our or she can have it. It's not a question of if but when the surgery occurs. Mom doesn't seem to get that part yet.

[Drunk Monk]

What hospital?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

My mother is cured! Well, that's what she says. After going through the MRI's, Scans and blood work, my mother has come to the conclusion that she is better. Especially, after going on a health specific diet for the gall bladder. One of the keys in her new found health is switching from the doctor that was giving her all this negative news. Who knew it could be this easy? If you need any medical advice, I'd call my mom first. She seems to be onto something.

On the flip side, none of the doctors agree with my mother's self-evaluation.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

For the past nine months, my father has had shooting pains in his legs. It happened after he spent interminable hours on a plane. He disembarked and the pain commenced. He went through months of what is causing the pain game with the hospital. They tried all sorts of things including a cortisone shot to the spine which hurt like hell.

They eventually opted for surgery on his spine. From the MRI, they determined some his vertebrae were just a little too close to each other. He was going to put it off until after the holidays and a planned cruise to everywhere, but the pain became too intense and he opted for the first available operating theater. This was last Thursday. It was supposed to be an outpatient procedure. Ha. Ha. Ha.

It turns out Dad had a little more calcification than they had planned. They had two surgeons working on him at the same time during the procedure. He had a little congestive heart failure during the procedure and he had more cardiac problems in the recovery room. Fun. They kept him. They put him on a self administering morphine drip. He maxed it out every hour. He called my sister, Stephanie saying he'd been kidnapped. He also reported being stuck on the ceiling. One night, he hung out at the nurse station telling his life story.

He went home today. He's too healthy for physical therapy, but still will be spending time sleeping in a hospital bed on the lower floors.

The good news, no more pain in the legs. But damn is his back killing him.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

When are you coming up? Does he have any extra morphine? I have some book-tape I could sell him...

OK, seriously - what is the recovery prognosis? He gets no PT? Isn't he diabetic?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I'm up. I'm back. I didn't stop except in hell.

For a future note, My father and I are both too old for me to see him naked. I'm just saying.

[Drunk Monk]

When you start dealing with incontinence issues, you'll be right here with me.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Did I not say, the parents are supposed to stay away from illness?

In other news, my father went into the hospital on Monday for shortness of breath. A shortness of breath he had been having for the previous five days. But it was more important to finish the Serra conference than to check in on his health. He could have left the plane, where it was getting worse, and gone right to the hospital but this would have ruined my mother's sleep. Dad waited until Monday morning to head to the doc's office. No blood clots. No Heart Attack. It's probably pneumonia. He wants to get out today. I think he has things to do.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

It only has power if you acknowledge it. Ignore it and it doesn't really exist.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

My father smoked unfiltered Pall Malls for twenty seven years. The bill came due yesterday after another trip to the emergency room. My sister went last week so it was his turn. All that shortness of breath he'd been dealing, turns out it wasn't congested heart failure (although still within the realm of possibility), he's got emphysema. Or COPD, if you listen to our pharmaceutical friends. Dad has already stated he doesn't want to be the guy carrying around the Oxygen tank. I don't think he really has a say in the matter.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

My parents just got back from a cruise. My mother brought me a pair of ashtrays from the ship as a gift. I'll just let you mull that over.