If it's not one thing, then it's another

I had what I think was a couple of gallstone attacks over the weekend. The first one I didn't think that much of. On Friday night after dinner, I started getting really uncomfortable because my back was hurting, but I went to bed soon after that because my phenergan had made me really sleepy. I just brushed it off as a backache and let that be it.

On Saturday night, I'd returned home from an evening with the girls when I started getting that same bad back pain all over my back. I tried stretching it out and taking some Tylenol, but nothing helped. The pain soon concentrated in the upper-middle part of the right side of my back and then within another 10 minutes had also wrapped around to the right side of my chest/abdomen. It felt like my ribs were going to implode--but only if my insides didn't explode first. The pain was unbearable (and unhelped by the heating pad), and all I could do was squirm to try to get comfortable (not possible).

Within another 15 minutes, I started getting chills, was very nauseated (different from the normal morning sickness nausea) and eventually threw up two or three times. I felt some relief after throwing up--enough to finally get to sleep after an hour and a half of writhing--but the pain still wasn't completely gone until I woke up this morning. I've got a family history of gall bladder disease, and I know that the higher levels of estrogen can cause this to happen in pregnancy, so I'm reasonably sure that's what it was. This is usually triggered by high-fat foods, but I've actually not eaten many high-fat foods lately because I don't have a desire for them with my lack of appetite. The only thing I can think it may have been--and it's something I had both Friday and Saturday nights--was ice cream, another known trigger.

I'm definitely planning to mention this to my doctor when I see him a week from tomorrow, but it's just scary wondering if this is going to be a regular thing for me. And, to have my already-limited eating choices even more pared down makes me exhausted trying to think of something to make for dinner these days.