Jeanna,
Hey, your fear on this one is totally logical if you ask me, as I understand exactly what you are going through! The first time I had a gall stone, I literally thought I might be dying and it scared the heck out of me. I was stuck out on an island of all places, visiting a friend's vacation cabin, and it hit me fast. One minute I was fine, the next I was throwing up and doubled over in pain. When I continued to get worse, my friends called 911, and luckily some paramedics lived right on the island and got there fast. When they first took my blood pressure, it was a whopping 80/20 (which scared the heck out of me). Then, just as the ambulance arrived from the mainland, the pain disappeared as if someone had flipped a switch and I quickly recovered with seemingly no after effects. As I learned later, the attack started when the stone blocked the duct and stopped just as fast when the stone either passed through the duct or lifted off of it.
Next attack wasn't until several years later, and it wasn't as severe. It would start as a queasy feeling and then turn into intense pain, usually followed by vomiting. It would last anywhere from a half-hour to several hours, and when I finally went to the ER during a particularly severe attack, they identified it as the gall bladder almost immediately, since there was some level they measured in my blood that was over 1,400 (normal was less than 50 I think, or something like that). Two days later, I was having my gall bladder removed (the old-fashioned way, since they couldn't locate my organ using the laproscope), and I've never had a problem since then. This was one surgery that worked just as it was supposed to.
Knowing how you are feeling during this gall stone attack, I definitely sympathize with you and wish you the best. I'll also keep my fingers crossed that this was your one and only stone and that you don't have a recurrence of this--they're just no fun at all, and as you mention, it's just one more annoyance you can do without.
Good luck,
Brad
