I went in to the doctor’s yesterday, to meet with the surgeon. Sarah came with me, to rough them up with her nurse-fu if they gave me any trouble. The surgeon was nice though, and was also curious to see if the flush did anything, so agreed to set up an ultrasound to see.
I scheduled an ultrasound for next week, and the surgery is scheduled for next month.
If the ultrasound shows that the stones were cleared by that herbal flush, then I can cancel the surgery.
If not, then I’ll go in for surgery on Oct. 10th, the operation takes about an hour, and then I’d go home and spend the weekend resting and recuperating.
While I was there, I requested copies of my ultrasounds (which the US technician falsely claimed I wasn’t allowed to have) and I swung by and picked them up this morning.
Here are the “before” ultrasounds, taken about a month ago (note, this is not “before” and “after”, just two different cross-section views from “before” – the “after” ultrasound hasn’t happened yet):
And here are the same images, where I’ve highlighted the important bits:
So a fair number of stones, but not a huge amount – some people have their gall bladder literally packed completely full of stones.
w00t nurse-fu!
-ak
I’m glad the surgeon was willing to listen to you and intellectually curious enough to see if the flush made any difference. Wow! Seeing your insides seems more intimate than seeing you naked!
love J.
Hehe, I’m glad I didn’t have to whip out my RN-chucks!
I agree that he seemed like a good guy. Very willing to listen and answer all of your questions. I was glad to hear the info about the ducts dilating with time post-op. That’s great info to know, as it answers questions about why people do ok digesting the fat later. Your ducts kind of take over as a pseudo-gall bladder later.
It’ll be interesting to see what your GB looks like after the flush!