Owner must be a very durable human! He's had a heart attack that killed a man older than him, he's had Mono/Hepititus, he's had a gall bladder removed.
Owner says he first noticed issues that year around Christmas Time. Christmas cookies of certain fatty kinds caused him "difficulties" of the gastric kind, problems he had never had before. He relates doing a Christmas Luminary function with his son the Scout (Scouts did that then - celebrate Christmas) and feeling like he wanted to lay down and "stretch out" and let things "settle" - with his arms over his head. The issue passed - Owner put it up to "getting older."
In the middle of January of that year, he was at work (office) and he stood up - and discovered abdominal pain for him of a "new" kind. He found it uncomfortable to stand up straight. Pressing and prodding, he found a "spot" which seemed to increase the discomfort.
Calling his doctor, and describing the symptoms without too much alarm, he asked for an appointment later that day - "On the way home from work" he says. Doctor says "we want you to come in NOW!"
He drove there without issue, laid on the table and his doctor repeated the same findings Owner had described.
"You're going into the hospital NOW" the doctor says. "Do you want us to call an ambulance?"
"No, I can drive myself."
Once in, testing confirmed an issue with Owner's gall bladder. As Owner was not in apparent pain, his surgery got "bumped" by an appendicitis case, and next day something else, and later that second day something else again.
"We're sorry you're being delayed, we have other emergency surgeries to deal with - and you seem like your surgery can be put off."
Meanwhile, Owner is getting tired - and hungry - because they won't let him eat due to the pending surgery. Owner says the longest three days he has lived!
Finally on the third day, the surgery is done. Owner walked out two days later. Owner recovered well, and a week later he hears from the surgeon on the follow up: "I want you to know you were a 'hot' one. I almost went in the old fashioned way rather than using the rotor-rooter (orthoscopic surgery) as your innards were fully inflamed which obscured my sight using the machine. We kept you for two days just to see that your blood chemistry straightened out - and that I reconnected the piping correctly. What should have been a one hour surgery ended up being FOUR HOURS. Let me know going forward if you have any problems with digestion or soreness in your abdomen."
"You weren't doubled over in severe pain?" the surgeon queried?
"No, not really."
Owner put it up to "no brain no pain."
He's being funny. He's really VERY smart...
Dobbin
