Still Testing

Nothing with me is ever simple or ordinary. This is no exception.

I saw the surgeon, on Tues. but he said that the sludge in itself is not reason enough to perform the surgery. He wants to know more details of what is going on inside me before he does any surgery. Which makes sense, but means that I have to be poked and injected and pictured and so on.

So on Friday, I had a "hida scan with a ccr injection" performed. It is a gallbladder function test. It wasn't as bad as what I had read, but wasn't a day at the beach either. With this test you lay flat on a table with an x-ray type machine very close over the top of you. There was a monitor to my left and it was positioned so that I could see it. I was then injected with a radioactive dye, which shows up on an x-ray and the screen. I watched it go through my right arm, into my heart and then into my lungs. This was pretty quick, only a few minutes. The dye then proceeded to go into my liver, which took a bit longer. I began to see the dye going to one spot near the bottom of my liver.......my gallbladder.

The technician explained the test to me as we were going along. He would say," the dye is now entering your ______" and "in a few minutes we will see it enter the _______". It was kind of neat, but scary at the same time. The machine would take pictures every couple of minutes. The technician would adjust the lighting on the screen every now and then, as to see the other organs that the dye had moved from (mainly the liver).

Once the dye had entered my gallbladder and began to go into my small intestines, I was given the second injection (the ccr part). It makes your gallbladder contract, which you CAN feel, and then empty as it normally does with the bile.

The fact that the second injection is given means that there are no blockages entering or exiting the gallbladder. No stones, no tumors etc......

That is about the only thing that the technician was able to tell me. He could not tell me if my gallbladder emptied as it is supposed to. (40% of the contents should empty)

So I will have to wait until Tues. (27th) to find out the results and to see what the Dr. recommends that we do.

In the mean time, I watch what I eat and take alot of Mylanta. This has helped somewhat. The pain and indigestion aren't as bad. Not totally gone either, but not as intense.

I'll post again, when I know more.........

Hope everyone has a good weekend!!!!