I Said It Right Before...

Back on Nov. 9, I published a post with this headline: "First One Thing, Then Another...There's Just No End." Little did I know then, though, what lay ahead of me.

On Friday morning, Nov. 17, I was getting ready to take my wife to the beauty salon when I got a pain in the middle of my chest that took my breath away. In a matter of only minutes, however, the pain went away, so I went ahead with what I planned to do. Five hours later, I got another pain like the first one, and it never left. I stayed home the rest of that day and all night long, trying to rid myself of it but with no success.

Come Saturday morning, Nov. 18, I asked the wife to take me to Sentara Princess Anne. We had just walked through the front door of the ER, and I said I had a pain in my chest, when nearby workers stopped everything they were doing and rushed me into a little room for an EKG. When that proved I hadn't had a heart attack, I was whisked away for an ultrasound, which revealed that I had problems with my gall bladder.

I subsequently was scheduled for an MRI, which didn't happen until shortly after noon today. This process was necessary to nail down whether the tunnel from the gall bladder to my liver was still blocked by a gall stone, which had created my problem in the beginning. After two days of regular blood draws, I finally was ready for the MRI. All my readings had returned to regular, which signaled I likely had passed the stuck gall stone. The MRI proved I indeed had, which means I now will be scheduled for outpatient surgery to remove my gall bladder no earlier than Dec. 4, the date after our next open tournament. I don't want to miss two of those in a row...one is more than enough.

Unfortunately, that surgery won't be the end of the line for me. As luck would have it, today's MRI turned up the fact I also have cysts on both my kidneys...and, moreover, I've had them since at least 2009, even though the doctor back then never mentioned a word to me about them. So...long story short...I've been told to come back to Sentara Princess Anne in six months and get those cysts checked out for any increase in size, etc., with, I suppose, the possibility of another surgery down the road.

It's always seemed a bit strange to me how bad luck always tends to run in groups...of usually three or more things. It would be nice if I could be the exception to this rule, but it's beginning to look as though that's not going to happen. Reckon I'd better get used to just rolling with the punches and make the most of 'em. Don't really see that I have any other choice in the matter.

Incidentally, after having had three of 'em now in recent years, I'm here to tell you...unequivocally...that the sound effects in one of those MRI chambers are as bad as ever. That's why I took one of my headache pills before going into that chamber today. The first time around, I had a giant headache before all those pounding sounds started, and I simply wasn't able to complete the procedure. These latter two times, I have gone the whole route...but not without many moments of doubt during the process.