Welch Whirl

Old News

Avert your eyes if you don't have the stomach for looking at the stomach.

So one of the other events that came and went this summer was Ben's Gall Bladder Surgery. Two weeks prior to finals Ben was having back pain and he was losing sleep over the intense pain. After he had had enough, one Saturday morning he woke up and said take me to the doctor now. We rushed into his clinic and emerged knowing relatively little, but luckily he was given the good stuff to take the pain away. Unfortunately, the coming week was a huge one for all of us. Starting early Monday morning Ben took some of his finals mingled with various doctor appointments, and ultra sounds, lab work. etc. Ben even called me right before one of his finals started and told me to rush over to Provo with some of his "good stuff" so that he could at least sit down in the chair. By 7:30 p.m. that night and after Ben had finished up a terrible day it was determined that he had stones.

The next day began the same. Finals for Ben, but in between it all I received a call from his doctor indicating that he was to get to the hospital A.S.A.P. (Ben's phone was shut off.) After reviewing more of Ben's lab work it was decided that he had something worse than stones. His stones were causing Pancreatitus. I showed amazing restraint in calling Ben. I knew he needed to finish the final that he was in . . . after a funny conversation Ben hopped the bus home and we headed for the hospital.






Ben ended up staying in the hospital only for the night. All it took was two Priesthood blessings and some skilled doctors and staff. We only have these two stones to show for it, about 5 tiny red scars, in strange places on his abdomen and oh yeah, a sizable monthly medical payment that will take many months to pay off.

As you can imagine his teachers cut him some slack and allowed him to finish the remainder of his finals a few days later.

And guess what, no more back pain.