Unhealthy Me

Yesterday morning, around 7:30am, I woke up with a weird ache in my side/back. I got up, began moving around, and the pain felt worse. It was on the right side, right where my kidney is. I pushed around a little bit, and the whole kidney-area was very tender. I called Mom at work and told her about it, and she told me to call the doctor and try to get in. So I did.

At my 3:15pm appointment, the doctor examined me and poked around some more on my kidney. Then she palpated my gallbladder. And I almost punched her. The pain was that intense. Based on my lack of any other symptoms, she concluded that my gallbladder duct was a little clogged, and so it was backing up into my kidney. Like a gallstone. Hence the pain in those two spots. Yay for me, right? So I was instructed to stick to bland food for a few days, and to watch for any other symptoms, such as nausea or a fever. But my appointment wasn't over.

For about a year or so, I've had a very rapid resting pulse, as well as severe palpitations that come and go. I took Valium for about a week, but that just put me to sleep instantly. And I tried a blood pressure medication, but that didn't help. So I've sort of ignored it. I had an EKG done last year, but it came back normal as can be. Well, when I was in for my appointment yesterday, my heart (finally!) started acting up when a doctor was around to witness it. She took numerous pulse readings, and it just hovered between 120 and 135. When I was sitting still. And had been for an hour. With no caffeine, no exercise, no nothing. So she did another EKG right then. And it came back not quite so normal. Not like "you're going to have a heart attack tomorrow," but definitely not 100% perfect. So lucky me, I get to go to the cardiologist Friday afternoon and wear a cardiac event monitor for a week.

And in the meantime, my kidney still hurts. Isn't life fun?