SW: 264
LW: 226
CW: 226

Wow. It feels like it has been such a long time since I updated here. Ack. I don’t like when that happens.

Well, it was one heck of a weekend, but first a little backtracking.

In May of this year, I started a meal replacement diet to get control of my binge eating and cut me off from everything but shakes, fruits and veggies. As you know, it worked quite well. By August, I lost about forty pounds.

Late June was the first time I woke up in the predawn hours, gasping for breath because the pain under my right ribs was so horrible. I managed to get through it, falling asleep in the least painful position on the lounge floor. While it was painful, I didn’t think much of it.

That is, until the next time it happened. This time, in July. This time was pretty much the same, me getting sleep hours later when exhaustion took over. But my husband and I started talking about it. Once a month wasn’t that much, but it was still weird. We’d read that the rapid weight loss that can happen with meal replacement can cause gallstones, but we didn’t really pursue it any further.

Then it happened in August. September, October, November…

This past weekend, it happened again, waking me up early Saturday morning with a pain even worse than the times before (I didn’t think it would be possible to be more painful than the previous time). My husband got me through it, soothing me with talking, gentle caresses and pain pills.

As usual, I was exhausted for the rest of the day, sleeping for most of it. Unlike the other times, though, that wasn’t all. Early Sunday morning, I had another attack and we went to the emergency room. They got me through the pain and made sure I didn’t have any immediate threats like infection. My bloods came back fine and we were scheduled for an early morning ultrasound.

Lo and behold, three big ol’ gallstones sitting happily in my gallbladder. No wonder the ultrasound had been so painful – they looked HUGE to me.

I was told that it was either surgery or learning to live with the pain (and the possibility of a more complicated surgery later should the stones block something).

Great.

I’m still quite tired even now with all the stress and everything that has been happening. Unfortunately, it appears to have put a complete stall on any weight loss. I’m pretty much banned from anything I would have had as an occasional treat, but that’s not making any difference.

Honestly, I’m too tired to stress about it right now. Bleh.