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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Maybe it wasn’t correct choice, but I’m not having surgery Friday

By David McElroy · December 28, 2017

If I had taken the advice of my emergency room doctor tonight, I would be in a hospital bed — getting ready for surgery in the morning. I didn’t take his advice, though, so I’m back home. Only time will tell whether I made the right decision.

I started feeling lousy on Christmas Day and I felt worse as the week went along. At first, it was just discomfort in my chest and back. I felt terrible in multiple ways. I went to work each day but I barely pulled myself through each day until it was late enough to go home and collapse.

By Thursday morning, the discomfort had turned to serious pain. I went to the clinic of a friend who’s a doctor about 11:30 a.m. After examining me and taking X-rays, he suspected the problem was my gallbladder, but he couldn’t be sure without an ultrasound.

He suggested I immediately head to a hospital emergency room.

By the time I got to the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham, I was in the most pain I’ve ever experienced. The pain in my chest and back was so strong I couldn’t even breathe deeply. I sat in the waiting room and researched all the negative possibilities of gallbladder problems while I waited for a doctor to see me. (I also spent a lot of time thinking about why I didn’t have a wife to come with me, but that’s a bigger issue.)

Simple tests ruled out other issues and the evidence kept pointing to gallstones. I was taken up a floor to an ultrasound machine.

By about mid afternoon, the pain suddenly subsided. I still didn’t feel back to normal, but I felt the best I’ve felt in a couple of weeks. Had I passed a stone in some way? Is that what had been going on all week?

The ultrasound results confirmed that I have gallstones. The gallbladder itself wasn’t enlarged or inflamed, but some of my liver enzymes and bilirubin were strongly elevated above normal. (If you’re like me, you have little idea what those things even mean.) The doctor said this indicated that the liver is upset about what’s going on.

The ER doctor went off to consult a surgeon, who agreed that my gallbladder needs to come out. They recommended I stay at the hospital tonight and have the surgery in the morning.

At first, I agreed to their plan, but I started questioning this course of action as I started texting with my doctor friend and reading other information online. It wasn’t that I thought the doctors at the hospital were wrong; it was simply that I wasn’t certain they were right.

The doctor warned me that this could turn into pancreatitis. There were several other dire possibilities, but that’s the one I remember most clearly.

I’m home now — about to get into bed so I can get back to work in the morning — and I still don’t know whether I made the right decision.

Maybe the doctor was right. I don’t know. But I do know that he said the other issues that could develop from this would come with their own warning signs — which will give me time to get back to a hospital in case I need to.

When we make medical decisions in emergency rooms, it’s hard to know whether we’re making the right ones. We rarely have enough information — and the information you find online can be wildly contradictory — and we generally defer to trained physicians who are the experts.

That might be what I should have done. But I couldn’t find any downside to taking my time and figuring out all my options. The doctor friend with whom I was texting suggested that he might be able to help me fix the issue through dietary changes, for instance. I just know that I wanted more opinions and more information before I decided.

For me, that was the right thing to do. Time will tell whether it was the right medical decision, but it was definitely the decision I was most comfortable with knowing what I knew at the time.

I hope that very competent ER doctor will forgive me for not taking his advice.

Note: My illness this week kept me unable to finish my new podcast, so it will be delayed a bit. I’ll finish the first episode for you just as soon as I can.

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Thunderstorms are just starting here, so I stopped Thunderstorms are just starting here, so I stopped on the way home — about a mile from my house — for some dramatic lightning photos. #nature #naturephotography #sky #lightning #night #thunderstorms #birmingham #alabama
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I’m recording video for a YouTube project late F I’m recording video for a YouTube project late Friday night and I just started thinking about how much different things in the studio look to me as compared to what video viewers see. The reality is that my home studio is just a room at my house that’s stuffed with lights and equipment (first shot), but when you look at what’s on the screen (second shot) you might assume I’m in a real studio somewhere. The only problem is that there are train tracks close to my house, so I have to shut down production whenever Norfolk Southern decides to send a freight train through my neighborhood. It’s amazing what is possible today that would have been impossible not that long ago.
The sky was beautiful above me as I walked out of The sky was beautiful above me as I walked out of Walmart just a few minutes ago. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
It’s only 9:30 p.m. and I’m finally almost hom It’s only 9:30 p.m. and I’m finally almost home, but it feels more like midnight. I showed houses tonight and then had to deal with some tenant problems in a couple of rental houses. I think it feels so late simply because it’s starting to get dark earlier and I’m not accustomed to it yet. On a night such as this one — when I feel really tired — I feel as though my clothes and face are a work uniform. And I’m ready to take the uniform off and go off-duty for the night.
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Oliver relaxes on my desk late Sunday afternoon wh Oliver relaxes on my desk late Sunday afternoon while I write at my desk. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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After a couple of days of rain — including serio After a couple of days of rain — including serious thunderstorms this morning — Oliver is enjoying some sunshine in an office window Saturday evening. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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As he hangs off the corner of my desk to survey th As he hangs off the corner of my desk to survey the office, it’s pretty clear just how productive a day Alex is having. His work is exhausting and he needs a weekend to recover. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Alex hid underneath a t-shirt on the bed for a few Alex hid underneath a t-shirt on the bed for a few minutes — and Oliver wasn’t quite sure what to think about the situation until his tabby brother emerged. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
A few minutes ago, I couldn’t find Sam anywhere. A few minutes ago, I couldn’t find Sam anywhere. Alex and Oliver were both in the bedroom, but they didn’t act as though anything was abnormal. I was starting to panic after looking for about 10 minutes when I finally saw two little eyes looking up at me from a pile of black clothes. The pile was roughly at waist level for me, so that meant when I glanced at the pile, I saw nothing but a big pile of black stuff. It wasn’t until I saw his eyes that I realized that Sam was part of that black “stuff.” #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #blackcat #blackcats #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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