Attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance.

This is far longer than I originally intended, but it is full of linky (28!) goodness and does have a particularly good twist to it.

Oh, and I’m not a doctor, so I’m not making any recommendations as to what you should do about your gallstones if you have any.

Thursday

It all started shortly after dinner on Thursday. A familiar pain on my right side began to blossom after a four year absence, much to my surprise, and obvious dismay.

At first, I thought that it wasn’t going to be such a big deal, but the pain continued to escalate into a full-power gallstone attack. For those of you who have never experienced one, the level of pain has been equated to giving birth, which I have never personally experienced from the mother’s point of view.

Friday

By late Friday morning, the pain continued to persist, but at a much lower intensity (why can’t I use that word anymore without thinking of that scene in Lost in Translation where the translator says “Again, with but with more intensity”?). I decided that this was quite unusual and I should go to the hospital to be checked out, throwing my normal Friday schedule into complete chaos (errands, back-up exchange, Patty’s).

Tracey drove me to the hospital. We got checked in, and I saw the Triage nurse and a few minutes after that, a clerk to confirmed my address and a few other details. I sent Tracey home, because the wait time said three hours, and I had a book (R.A. Salvatore’s Exile Part 2 of the Legend of Drizzt).

In the end, I was out of there in touch over two hours. With the doctor instructing me to take it easy and take a couple of ibuprofen’s and to come back if things worsened. He said that it was likely a gallstone attack or, possibly, appendicitis as the appendix is in the same general area.

So, I went home, lay down on the couch and took it easy. I watched the rest of Season 3 of Babylon 5, finished reading the book and started another – same series, but Part 4, The Crystal Shard, and surfed in my iPod Touch.

I’d like to make a short aside about how an iPod Touch is a *fantastic* device that let me keep answering email, twittering and surfing the web without the weight of a laptop on me (which would have been bad). If you will be spending considerable time in bed-bound an iPod Touch & wifi or, as of Friday, an iPhone (but far more costly over time), look into an iPod Touch, as it will help you keep your sanity while idle like I was. The Ottawa General Hospital *does not* have publicly available wifi in the waiting room, unfortunately, but I think they are busy fixing people.

Saturday

Continued forced R&R, and by this point I was quite certain that I was undergoing some kind of prolonged gallstone attack due the continued pain and the persisting change in the colour of my urine (to a dark orange). Sorry if that is too much information, I’m trying to get all the details here.

Around 5:00 PM, I was still in pain, we’d measured my temperature above 38