A few weeks ago, my eldest daughter wasn't feeling well. She was throwing up, complaining about stomach pains, and basically, everything that went in came straight back out. Even water. At first, I have to admit, I wasn't taking it too seriously. First of all because throughout her almost 17 years of life, she has a habit of eating the wrong things. Things I warn her about, like white bread, white rice, and other crap. Her stomach has never fared well on those 'foods', so this was my first thought: she must have eaten something like that. Besides that, my son had recently come down with the stomach flu, so to me, it was 1 + 1 = 2.

However, later that night, she almost cried with pain, to a point when both me and her boyfriend didn't know what to think of it. We were both still on the fence about things, but when she insisted that she didn't have this stomach bug, I promised to take her to the doctor's office the next day. There's something I have to explain about my daughter. Her way of rebelling against me is to go with the mainstream when it comes to medical issues. She rolls her eyes at my natural remedies, even though they work. She would just never admit to me that I could be right about things. There was a time when she was younger when she would ask for 'the plant' (meaning Aloe Vera) when she had scraped her knee. And even though she is still using it now when she has a cut or scrape, she will never admit that it actually works.

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So in the morning, I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. The assistent was quick to tell me that there was no time slot available until after the weekend. It was Thursday. She asked me about the symptoms, and then (just like I did for a moment, the night before) said she thought it sounded like constipation and to call her back if it got worse. I told her right away that she seemed to be in a lot of pain that just wouldn't go away, but she wouldn't budge. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the hospital instead, but she declined. The thought of being in that waiting room for at least 5 hours, didn't appeal to any of us. But an hour later, the pain was still there, and there was nothing that worked to relieve it. I called the doctor back and this time, the assistant let us come in, right away.

Doctor Google

I had a good look at my daughter, in daylight, which makes all the difference, rather than inside the home. I let the thoughts of her symptoms pass through my mind for a brief moment, and studied her skin complexion. She seemed a bit yellowish. I blurted out the very first thing that came to mind: "This looks like gall-stones to me if you ask me."
At this stage, there was only a shrug coming from her. She'd left the eye-rolling behind...
Luckily, the doctor was ready to see her within minutes. Asked the usual questions. What did she eat, what does she usually eat throughout the day, was there a possibility of pregnancy... He then asked her to give him a urine sample, also did a pregnancy test (just 'in case') which came back negative, and did some quick tests with some acidity papers (?). He said that he would send off the sample for lab work.
Now I had the chance to tell him my thoughts, but when I mentioned gall-stones, he was close to giving me an eye-roll. Instead, he sighed, and said: "Now, let's not self-diagnose and jump to conclusions before the lab tests come back."
I could see from the way he talked that his inner thoughts were: "There you have'em again, those Google doctors..." he was about to send us off, when I asked him to write a letter, just in case things got worse and we needed to visit the hospital. He wrote us that, and two prescriptions to stop nausea, and stop vomiting.

On the way home

My daughter was happy to take the medication he prescribed, but only seconds after she took them, she threw all of it up again. No good.
Towards the evening she started feeling a bit better and even ate a little bit.
Since she was supposed to stay at her boyfriend's house that night, I gave her the letter the doctor gave us, in case she had to go to the A&E from there.

About 12 hours later, there she was. After a long 6 hours of tests and waiting, they finally admitted her. The first thing they gave her after blood tests, was an X-Ray. I thought this was odd, and questioned them why they didn't do an ultra-sound first as it is less invasive and they can usually see a lot on those. Nothing came back on the X-Ray...
The doctor on call replied, with the same look I had seen on the GP the day before, that they were going to do that, probably the next day. They also booked her for a gastroscopy, before the ultrasound.

In the morning

I called my daughter to ask how it was going, and that I was leaving soon with some of her things. She was a bit annoyed, as they wouldn't let her leave the room as she had to wait for the team to come and get her for those tests.

Upon my arrival, shortly after, she still hadn't been seen. I asked the nurse on the ward, which was the children's ward, so Peppa Pig and Dora the Explorer galore, if we could bring her downstairs to the restaurant. She replied that this was not possible because they could now call her in any time, and if she wasn't there, she'd have to wait longer...

Noon came, and two p.m. came and no 'team' in sight. We asked the same nurse again. It was still a firm No. By 4 p.m. I asked the nurse if they had maybe forgotten my daughter. She then said we could take her downstairs for a little while, but to be back soon, because any moment now...

In the cafeteria, I ordered a coffee for myself and juice for my daughter and her boyfriend.
We just sat down as the doctor who was on my daughter's case walked past and recognized her. He seemed friendly enough, introduced himself to me, as I hadn't met him yet and then told us that they would not be able to fit her in for any tests that day (yeah, duh...). Since it was Friday, it wouldn't be until Monday...He apologized and then asked me to stay behind while the two of them made their way back upstairs.

This is when things got interesting. He was concerned about her weight. Yes, I told him I was too, because she was always on the thin side, and these past few days of barely eating and throwing up had not done her any good. I judged him for a moment, and thought to bring up my initial thoughts again but he pretty much brushed those under the carpet right away. "We shouldn't jump to any conclusions."
He then asked me about her mental health, and I told him that the past year had been tough for her, with school and other things. He apologized again before saying goodbye.
As he walked away, it hit me: they are treating this as an eating disorder. Her weight loss causes them to bark up the wrong tree!
Now, she's had her issues this past year. It hadn't been an easy year. But I know my daughter, and I know that I would have scoped it if she had an eating disorder, probably before it developed into something serious. But still, this conversation didn't leave me with a great feeling...

The weekend came and went, and Monday, I made sure I was at the hospital before noon, as they were going to do the gastroscopy around lunch time. She hadn't been allowed to eat or drink since 12 a.m.
When I arrived, she had already had her ultrasound, which was odd, since they had told us they would do this after the gastroscopy.
But then again, nothing anyone had said had been done to this point, so no surprise here.

Noon came, and still no call. Again, 2 p.m. came, no one. Finally, at 4.45 p.m the nurse came in to bring her to her appointment. Ridiculous if you think that they are worried about an eating disorder but then let her without food or liquids for nearly 17 hours.
Not that the hospital food would help anyone back to health...
At this stage, I still didn't know what came out of the ultrasound.
After the gastroscopy, my girl was rolled back into her room where we waited for the team of doctors to tell us what the deal was.
This didn't happen until 6.30 p.m.
They told us she would have to stay at least two more days, she would definitely not be able to come home the next day. But probably Wednesday.
They wanted to give her antibiotics in a drip for those two days because there was some inflammation visible.
When I asked where they replied: the gallbladder...And, oh yeah: in the ultrasound, hours earlier, they had seen that she had gall-stones....🤔😡
Jeez just imagine they would actually listen to what I had to say. It would have saved her a few days in the hospital. And fewer tests. But yeah, you wouldn't trust someone who 'self- diagnoses' of course.

I went home, slightly annoyed by this, thinking that I would be collecting her in a day or two.

The next day, she calls me in the morning, to tell me the doctor was going to call me. They wanted another blood test 'just to be sure'...and she didn't want to do it (she hates needles). I should tell them that they could stick their needles elsewhere and that I was bringing her home. When the doctor called, he told me they needed to do the test to be sure that her blood came back normal.
I called her back, told her that they wouldn't let her go without it. We couldn't really refuse, or they could call social workers for refusing care. Not an option. So she agreed to get it done.

At 5 p.m. the doctor called me to tell me I could come to pick her up. Hmmm, so first they needed to keep her till Wednesday, but now all of a sudden she could go. Sounds to me like they needed the bed.
He asked: "So you heard what the issue was?"
"Yes..."
"What did you hear?" (What was I? An intern?)
"Well, why don't you tell me, you're the doctor. I'm only a self- diagnosing Google doctor."
Quiet...
"Well, the gallstones...But that's good news."
"How is that good news?"
"Well, now at least we know the issue and are able to do something about it (read: cut out her gallbladder)"
"Uh huh.."
"Aaand..." he added, "now we also know there is no mental issue. That would be much harder to treat."
"Yeah, I already knew it wasn't. I'm on my way."

source

On the way home...

My daughter, her boyfriend and I are chatting away. She was happy to go home. Five days in that hospital drained her.
"Mom?!"
"Yeah?"
"You know something natural for these buggers right?"
"The gall stones? Yes."
"Good."

For a moment it was quiet.
Then something came to mind and I laughed out loud.

"What?" My daughter asked me.
"I just realized something. I missed my calling."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, I should have become a doctor."
And with a laugh, but annoyance in her voice over the ordeal she'd been through, she replied:
"Yeah, well, you definitely would have been better than any of them.What a bunch of idiots!"
😂🤣

My work here is done...

Thank you for reading!

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