6 sleepless nights, 5 doctors and 1 trip to the ER

March was almost full of more excitement than I could handle.  It began when Jimmie starting having stomach pain just like last June when he was told he had an ulcer so he went to see the doctor.  From the blood work is appeared the ulcer causing bacteria was back so he had to go back on his medicine to help it heal.

Then Lincoln got a little cold.  Besides several sleepless nights, nothing I couldn't handle.  Then his post-nasal drip cough turned into a deep chest cough so we took a trip to his doctor.  The Dr. confirmed that his little cold had turned into Bronchitis so we went home and started the regimen of medicine.  We still had a few more hard nights because he got much worse before he got better. 

While I was up each night with Lincoln, Jimmie was up with his own pain as it was getting progressively worse each night.  Finally it was so intense that we ended up going to the ER Wednesday at 3:30 am for help.  We got there and they asked about his health history and any medications he was on.  We told him about being diagnosed with an ulcer the previous Friday and the meds.  After drawing Jimmie's blood, giving him morphine, and making him drink some chalky white substance to help coat his stomach, the doctor told us he was SURE the pain was probably just the ulcer and we were discharged to go home.  I insisted this pain was not the normal ulcer pain, Jimmie had been dealing with that since June!  There was another problem and we needed to figure out what it was.  I don't know if it was because it was so early in the morning and they were tired, but the doctor and nurse just insisted it was the ulcer and we should call our regular Dr. after their office opened.  Even though he'd had 3 shots of Morphine, Jimmie was still hunched over in pain and I wanted some sort of diagnostic test done.  (If I'm going to pay that much for a ER visit and be dragged out of bed at 3 am, at least figure out what is wrong!)

By now it was 7 am and a new doctor and nurse were on shift.   I explained to them how nothing had been done to diagnose the problem and the Dr. said he'd take a look.  He pushed on Jimmie's abdomen and discovered the pain wasn't in the center where his stomach is located, it was off to the right side.  He decided Jimmie needed an ultrasound of his gall bladder.  Off he went to ultrasound where they found 3 large stones and said he needed his gall bladder removed as soon as possible.

 Surgery was booked so Jimmie had to wait until the next day to have the surgery done.  In the mean time we had to go meet the surgeon for him to examine Jimmie and explain everything that would happen.  Here is Jimmie the day of his surgery. He was just excited to get rid of the cause of all his pain.

It's amazing how much more playful one becomes when they are on Morphine.

The best part of the surgery was the cute little teddy bear they give you.













His battle wounds.