And back to the drawing board. . .

I'm still debating if I should write this or not, but since I like to use my blog to talk about things going on in my life, I guess I will. Here goes.

For the last two months I've been having this pain in my left side, just underneath my ribs, off and on. It started back in April, and, truthfully, I didn't think much about it. I thought at first that it was just a pulled muscle or something and when it didn't go away I decided it was just something I had to live with. And I was okay with that.

Well, a couple weeks ago the pain intensified. Instead of hurting occasionally, it started hurting constantly. I was still content to live with it until I visited my sister a couple weeks ago. I hadn't really talked much about it for a variety of reasons, the most important being that I didn't want to make a big deal of nothing. My sister pointed out that this pain could be something serious so I'd better get it taken care of.

I called the doctor just over a week ago, expecting it would take several weeks to get an appointment. I was shocked when I got in that day (they must've had a last-minute cancellation). The doctor was concerned about the pain in my side and another pain that had cropped up. I thought they were connected, but she said they were two separate things. She scheduled me an appointment for an ultrasound. Again, I thought it was going to take at least a week, so I was surprised when the appointment was set up for the next day.

For anyone who hasn't had one, an ultrasound is not a big deal. The problem with mine was waiting for the results. The radiologist who did my scan said they should be back to the doctor's office by the next morning at the very latest. I waited for two days and heard nothing so I called in and left a message. It took clear until this morning before I heard anything back. I was quite frustrated, mostly because I wanted to know how to proceed.

The diagnosis was also frustrating: pretty much we've done everything we can to help you so try these two other types of doctors to figure out what is causing your pain. Good luck with that! It was a relief on the one hand and completely frustrating on the other. Now the question is, where do I turn next? I think my plan will be to see a GI doctor, but since he/she is a specialist, I'm guessing it'll take a long time to get in. I'll just have to try it and see.