The results are in.

Monday, the day before my scheduled ultrasound and HIDA scan, I made a mistake: I ate two small chicken nuggets from a fast food place. About fifteen minutes later, I was in agony, and on my knees barfing. The chills set in afterward, and I bundled up in a blanket even though it was about 85 degrees. It passed, eventually, but not without leaving me feeling miserable.

Tuesday dawned, and I headed off for the scans. We did get the preliminary results today: the ultrasound showed nothing, because they had a terrible time seeing my gallbladder, and the HIDA scan showed stones.

Now, I know how painful it is when an attack comes. My family knows how terrible it is. Surely the medical people know how bad it can be. Can we move up our scheduled followup appointment from the 27th? No, says the staff at the doctor’s office. There’s nothing open. And what about all the pain between now and then, asks my mom? Well, says the nurse at the office, if it gets really bad, I guess you’ll have to go to the hospital.

Wow, that’s very caring.

So, here we sit, with me feeling seasick all the time, wary of eating anything in case it sets off an attack. I also now have pain in my back as well as the front – something noted in the symptoms – and I feel like crap. This is no way to go through a day. Friday, we will be calling around to other gastro offices to see who can work us in. It does me no good to pour formula down the tube or eat anything if it just comes out, one way or the other.

We also saw the ENT for this spot the PET scan picked up on my tongue. Reassuring news: he sees no bumps, feels nothing, and says my tongue is still raw and red (which makes sense, since I have been trying to eat real food, even with this gallbladder nonsense). So we’ll keep an eye on that. Not so reassuring: this spot on the mandible is probably dental, because I can feel some pain in my gum and jaw on the lower left side, and I’m hoping that the radiation didn’t hurt things so badly that I have to have major dental work done. I hate dental-related things, and since I can’t open my mouth very widely, it’s even more painful these days. Now we need to find a dentist who is familiar with treating patients who have had radiation treatments.

On the plus side, we’re in negotiations to buy out another relatively small company, and waiting on their decision. We also went back to the developer and signed a contract (as well as laid down a check). There is a five day period where the contract can be voided, so we’re using that time to look at a few more places, just to make sure we’ve found what we really want.

And it’s football season officially! Sunday is game day, and the Cowboys are coming to town. I’m hoping we have a good season, but the team can be so schizophrenic – just look at the Foxboro meltdown from last season – that it’s hard to predict how they’ll do. Still, the games are fun, and Sunday will be one day shy of exactly a year that I last went to a game. At least this year I’m not going through radiation and chemo that make me into a zombie. I’m looking forward to reaching my goal of going to every game this season, except for one when I’ll be out of town. We’ll see just how well that works, given all these other issues swirling around.