…the other.
The past 8 months have involved health challenges so overwhelming I can only sum it up in this way: It’s the worst I’ve experienced in over a decade, after the best I’ve experienced in over a decade.
So, in 2014, I went from best yet to worst yet. The amazing takeaway from it all is not merely a seriously upsetting reversal but a series of seriously validating revelations. In short, I know more about the systems and sources comprising my overall health picture than I ever would have known without the reversal. A gift posed as a curse, it seems.
For now, suffice to say the work to assimilate and integrate what I’ve learned has created a stall here, total silence. I’m coming out of that silence screaming. What am I screaming?
Keep your gallbladder. (This means don’t have a “cholecystectomy!”)
If it’s acting up, functioning poorly and turning your life upside down, imagine what will happen if you don’t have one at all. In my work poring over gallbladder removal refugee forums, one commenter on a post cholecystectomy forum said it all: If it’s bad with it not working properly, imagine how horrid without it. The body has a gallbladder connected to the liver for a reason.
The combination of CFS/ME relapse and ghostbladder nightmares created a total body shutdown for me this past fall. I could barely move just to do the basics. My gut was not absorbing anything. My legs shook at the slightest provocation and my symptoms escalated to include MS/ALS/GBS hauntings. Tests ruled out all the worst fears but the leftover issues have been plenty to face.
I cannot say this enough: Keep your gallbladder. If it’s not functioning well, heal it. Don’t have it cut out. You won’t be given the full picture by doctors who refuse the nutritional and holistic approach. If I had known all the risk, I would have refused this one. Research alternative nutritional approaches and healing modes and, if your budget can withstand it, find a doctor not constrained by insurance oversight. Without the gallbladder the gut goes into total imbalance and turmoil. 15 years post surgery, I hit a brick wall after year after year of challenges, patching up my resulting problems as best as I could. It wasn’t enough.
So, this week I see a doctor of functional medicine and my work to heal will take on new dimensions.
One foot, then the other… (but hey, keep your gallbladder!)
