Oh, the gall!

I have a fritzy gallbladder! A week ago (last Thurs), I started having pain in my gut that sent me to the ER that night. Things were ruled out, and I was sent to a gallbladder test the next day, which showed I have a low-functioning GB (no stones). I've seen a gastroenterologist, who will be doing an endoscopy tomorrow morning. I'm actually quite excited about this---the last time I had this test was in Japan. They don't put you out there like they do here, so I was totally awake for it (what I remembered most was seeing my reflection in the glass door of a cabinet...think "deer in the headlights" and that pretty much sums that up!). I'm really curious to know what they find down there. From what I've read (and that's been A LOT so far), this is pretty standard procedure. I have an appointment to see a surgeon next week to talk about options.

The funniest part of all this is how many people are coming out of the woodwork to tell me about their horrible experiences, and how I shouldn't have it removed, blah blah blah. The thing is, most of these people I've been in contact with have had gallstones, which is a much different protocol than what I'm going through. Mine is not an emergency, nor am I in pain 24/7. Thanks to a low-fat diet, my pain has been significantly reduced and I'm feeling pretty fine right now. I appreciate the advice people have given me, but it kind of irks me that no one really takes into consideration that what they went through might be different than what I'm going through. Anyway...

Jackson's speech is still slowly coming along. Last night, he shocked both Paul and me by saying "banana," which he's never said before (he doesn't like eating them, so they're not high on his need-to-know list). He knows all his letters and the sounds they make (thank you LeapFrog!), but he's not really on the path to learning to spell. In fact, neither of us is pushing for that right now. I'm reading an interesting book on typical 2 year old behavior, and they stress not pushing kids into learning things too quickly (like spelling and reading). We haven't pushed the alphabet on him, though we've encouraged it, and his desire to learn it has seemed more natural than forced, so we consider it to be ok. We're certainly not going to discourage it!

One of these days, I'm going to write about my neighbor. It's too much to get into right now. Suffice it to say, it's quite the story. I'll keep you hanging with that...