u/North-Point7309

Because my A&E worthy attack happened in my uni city and this is where I am now for my scans, this is where I 'have to' have my operation.

The doctor asked me if I'd rather have my surgery done in X hospital or Y hospital, both in my university area. I asked him if it's possible I can have the surgery in any hospital in my home city because that's where my parents are that would be able to take care of me and I can be at home etc. He said this would be difficult as I'd need to essentially do the whole process of being referred to that GP and then being referred to the hospital there etc. I just had my scan today and he said he'll call me about my decision for my surgery next week, so it's not booked in yet.

I'm worried with the state of NHS waiting times that if I go with the route of going to my home city for it, I'll be waiting a lot longer than anticipated (he said that if I say yes in my uni city, the waiting time is about 6ish weeks) and possibly miss the opportunity to have it done so soon. I'll obviously confirm this when I get the call and see about the possibilities but the most convenient one so far is to have the operation in my uni city. The problem is that I basically don't even know anyone that drives, and I don't want to faff my parents with coming here for a long period of time. Also, because I switched courses, I'm in university for longer than my friends, so all of my close friends are graduating this summer so the ones I'll have left in September, we're not close enough for me to ask them to check in on me post op. I'll also be living in student accommodation next year, so I'll have a bedroom to myself and a shared bathroom and kitchen, which is another reason why asking my parents would be an extra expense on them (for a hotel) and why I would prefer to do it at home.

So, would I be able to do it by myself? I'm thinking food prepping easy small meals for post op and stuff. Or is this a stupid idea? Is it better if I ask my mum to come for a few days, this way we can do an air mattress situation if it's needed and take an Uber back from hospital (it's a short drive)? If I do ask her to come, how long would you say you needed 'assistance' post op?

Also, as a side note, what was your bathroom situation post op? As I mentioned, I will be sharing a bathroom with strangers in my accommodation next year. It's one bathroom for 4 people, so would this be a problem? Would it be better to look into a hotel room for me for at least the first few days post surgery for a 'private' bathroom or an airbnb with a kitchen?

Thanks in advanced!

After typing this all up and seeing the length, I realise this is also a vent, I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Thanks to anybody that read all of this, and I'm sorry for the length haha

I just got back from my scan after going to A&E on Thursday which confirmed I have gallstones. The doctor gave me a choice of keeping my gallbladder and sticking to a low/no fat diet to see improvements or a removal. He also gave me a week to decide but I think I will take the operation after reading this subreddit to death. Since going to A&E and my inflammation going down, I've been eating small low/no fat meals and I'm not going to lie, maybe I'm just greedy and fat but I am miserable haha. Food brings me joy and removing so much of the 'good stuff' is both so inconvenient and sad. Maybe I'd get used to it if I kept my gallbladder, but I want to enjoy eating and eat what I like (in moderation. I've learned my lesson). I also think I'm incredibly lucky that my hospital took me so seriously immediately. I had one gallbladder attack (two in the same day so I'm just counting it as one) in January, I dealt with that at home and didn't go to the doctors at all and nothing else happened until this month. At the start of this month, I went to Spain for three days and my last day was ruined because of an attack. It was so bad that I considered going to the hospital there but I just rode it out because checkout was in a few hours haha. Came back to the UK and scheduled a doctors appointment immediately, they put me on the waiting list for a scan but a few days later I had another attack so bad that I went to the hospital, which was the Thursday where they gave me today's scans for the gallbladder. I didn't deal with any pain besides the attacks, even now I feel completely fine, after taking most of my prescription for the inflammation. With the state of the NHS right now, I thought I'd be waiting years so I'm thankful it seems like it'll only be a few months, which is another reason I don't want to put this off because I'm scared I won't be able to get a surgery again so quickly. Do I regret not dealing with this in January way before the summer holidays? YES

Anyways, regardless, he said if I chose to do it I'd be put on a list with a 6ish week waiting time, so 7 weeks from today after the decision. The most annoying part is that I am going away on holiday three times until then. One of those is to my home country though, so I'm not too worried about that as I know the language, can communicate, know what to expect etc. The other two are holiday holidays, one to Turkey with friends and the other to Tunisia with my parents and those, I have no idea how to manage as I want/need to eat low fat to avoid another attack.

Turkey is only like three days but it's self-serving, so we will cook or eat out most nights. Obviously I'll do research on restaurants and stuff where to eat but apart from that, I don't know what I'm going to do. Even on previous holidays when we 'cooked', it was slop like oven pizza or a massive pot of tortellini. I don't know if I want to faff around with cooking chicken breast on holiday when my friends meals take 10 minutes but I might have too. Maybe I'll just eat plain rice everywhere and steal bites from my friends (Sorry friends). I'm hoping I can Google translate in places and be annoying by asking for chicken breast with 0 oil.

Tunisia will be different because we're going all-inclusive. I'm hoping for the same thing of eating rice and only a few pieces of meat or other stuff to try different things and get some protein. I also don't want to tell my parents about this situation either yet, I'll tell them soon before we go away but not yet.

I'm also annoyingly picky so I don't like seafood or fish which I believe is often boiled or steamed or something without fat, which could've been an option for me. At the all-inclusive, if they have it, I will try it though, but I go to Turkey first and I don't want to pay for it for me to not like it. Stingy, picky and greedy smh...

So, I'm not going to lie, I'm devastated at how my holidays will turn out. Obviously, this is a bit greedy and food-obsessed as I'll obviously still have fun and make the best memories but it sucks so much that I won't be able to enjoy food and will have to worry about it so much. I can't do anything about it now besides de-center food in my head, which also both sucks and wins. I grew up with such a bad relationship with food and my body, and 'almond' parents that I don't think I'll ever have a healthy relationship with it, regardless of these gallbladder issues. I was slowly getting my groove with eating though as I moved out for university and live by myself, but now I have to constantly worry. I'm terrified of food again, but this time not because of how my body looks, but rather because of these attacks. It just seems like I cannot win and all I want is a chocolate cookie.

Whatever. The win in this situation is that I asked my doctor about drinking and he said that it was completely fine (to the degree that drinking is) if it's clear liquor and the mixer is low fat or soda water or some bullshit like that. So, let's take a shot for a lit Turkey 2026!

I say this as a Polish person who's lived their life in the UK.

Everyday I wake up to see some bullshit on my phone, hating on Americans. Yes, there's a lot to dislike about the country and it's okay to moderately poke fun at a countries annoying habits from time to time but I've noticed an influx in comments on American posts that just isn't valid and is coming from a weird sense of superiority.

In the past two days I've seen two videos FLOODED with these comments. One was an American who is on holiday in Poland and was showing what she bought in the local shop. She put the price on screen and gave a haul, not once did she complain about the price. Her haul came from Zabka, a convenience store, but at the beginning of the video she said "We went to the grocery shop!" and every comment was something of "This is a CONVENIENCE shop!!! Not Grocery!! Stupid American!! It is SO MUCH more expensive!!!" like okay... She's on holiday and she either didn't know or didn't care. I don't know about other people but when I'm abroad, sometimes I do just buy stuff from the convenience shops. She didn't even buy 'groceries', it was like milk and cheese but the rest were crisps, easy pastries, drinks and snacks etc. The few 'grocery' items she did buy wouldn't be ridiculously cheaper in a big shop either. I also assume she's in a big city, where grocery shops are often further out or not in the 'prime' touristy locations.

The other video I saw was an American living in the UK who was talking about going to a shop on a Sunday. Here the shops close earlier and open later because of trading laws. She complained a bit, acknowledged it was a rule, and said she went to a shop at 10:30, picked up what she needed but was told that it's only browsing hours until 11 (which also, what's the point?). She vented, nowhere did she blame the workers or the shop, or demanded the hours to be changed on Sunday but the comments were once again flooded with "Go to the shop a different day/time!! Stupid American!!!". One comment said something like, "Airports are open early! Go there and get out." Chill. As a British person, I often complain about the whole shops on a Sunday situation, yes it's poor planning on my part but who cares? It's just a complaint (NOT to the shop, NOT to the workers, NOT even in hopes of change), it's just a "Sundays are so annoying" type of thing and I bet if me, someone with a British accent, made that video, the comments would be agreeing.

Another example I can think of is the whole "I went to Europe for the summer!" thing that happens every once in a while. If an American gets on social media and says something along those lines, the comments are filled with "Ugh, you know that's a continent, right? Did you go Bradford or Rome? Dumb American doesn't know about different countries". I get the whole point that each country is so different, but most people who say that went to Italy, the UK, Greece, Spain and Portugal etc. in one trip so it'd just be annoying for them to list those or pedantic to expect them to say "I traveled around Europe for the summer", when we all know what they mean and we're not being graded. Let's also not pretend that this is strictly an American thing. Since coming to uni and meeting people who are more well-traveled, I have heard "Yeah, I went to Asia on my gap yaaaaaar" countless times. It's the same thing but no one has a problem with it when it's a European saying that, because did you go Japan, or did you go Kazakhstan? If you were actually interested in where they went, the next line from you should be "Oh cool, where did you go?"

A lot of us need to step off our high horse and stop acting like we are smarter than every American. Don't even get me started on the whole "I'm too European for this" thing.

Hi all,

I had my first attack of (what I suspect to be) the gallbladder in January. This happened twice in one day, followed by a night of heavy drinking and a greasy meal post-club. I panicked during it and started frenzy googling and came to the conclusion it was my gallbladder.

I cleaned up my diet the next few months (not super strictly, just cut out some fat), included apple juice and apple cider vinegar in my diet and forgot about it, as an attack hadn't come back so I decided not to see a doctor.

Two days ago, I had an attack/episode again. As much as I thought the first one was bad, this one was so much worse. I couldn't sit, lie down, stand, crouch etc. It started off being the same pain so I assumed it was that again and decided to wait four-ish hours to see if it'd pass (as that's how long it took last time) but it just got worse. The most annoying part is that I was on holiday, and was about to go out with friends but I couldn't even handle sitting up to do my makeup so I told them that I just felt too sick to go out and reassured them to go have fun without me.

Four hours had passed and the pain was worse, my friends weren't back, there was only one key for the AirBNB and I just wasn't bothered to go to an A&E abroad. It was also maybe like 3am at this point, checkout was at 10am and flight was at like 3pm so going to the hospital seemed like too much of a drag to consider it so I toughed it out. I was able to sleep a little bit between 5-8am, where the pain had gotten so much more manageable. I also regularly checked my eyes for any signs of jaundice, in case this became something more serious. Thankfully, I was fine for the journey back home, a little uncomfortable but not a full blown attack.

First thing I did today was book an appointment with the doctor. I still had some mild cramping around my stomach area/gallbladder area but it felt more like gas or it just slowly recovering from the attack. I explained the situation and said something like 'I think it's my gallbladder, because of where the pain was, how long it took, and how it wrapped around to my back' to which she said, yes the gallbladder can cause attacks like this because of stones trying to pass but, in your case, it's most likely not serious because of your age (21). She was lovely and not dismissive, she booked me in for a scan and some bloodwork but I was just curious.

Is my age and the fact that my 'attacks' aren't regular pointing to something being a one-off problem; perhaps when eating greasy food or on holiday, when plenty of alcohol is involved?