Of February and Gall Bladders

You might have noticed a drop in the frequency of my blog posts. Well, to be honest, February has been a bit of a wash for me. You see, it started with a trip to the emergency room followed by a three-day hospital stay, and a long recovery due to emergency gall bladder surgery. I'm all for being special, but not when that means having the "worst looking gall bladder" your doctor has ever seen.

The whole thing started the night of the Super Bowl. We had a few friends over, I made pulled pork, and things went just fine. That night, after clearing away all the dishes we turned in, expecting nothing more than being a little tired on Monday morning. Instead, as I lay in bed, I started having cramps.

The cramps worsened throughout the evening and eventually I became nauseous, so I thought I'd probably gotten the stomach flu. One of our friends who'd came to watch the game had recently gotten over a stomach illness and it didn't seem impossible that I'd picked up the same bug. So, I moved to the couch and turned on ESPN to watch the endless drivel and re-imagining of the season ender while I weathered the symptoms. The only problem was, the symptoms didn't get  better - they worsened.

By midnight I'd called off work, I spent Monday alternating between lying awake in bed and soaking in a hot tub (seemed to be the only thing that would dull the pain). Finally, at seven thirty Monday evening, I gave in and asked Kelly to drive me to the emergency room where I was probed, prodded, tested, and finally diagnosed as needing to have my gall bladder removed.

I'm home again now, and slowly getting back to normal. Still moving a little slowly and it'll be a long time before I'm doing any vigorous exercise, but I'm recovering and as my energy returns I'll be back to publishing with more regularity. So, just hold tight!