Thanks. Humor is always helpful. I can relate. Many years ago I was malpracticed and misdiagnosed in an emergency room for an excruciating pain on the right side of my abdomen. They gave me a cup of PeptoBismol and sent me home. I spent most of the next month curled up on the bathroom floor in a fetal position, until my doctor referred me to the chief Gastroenterologist at a teaching hospital. Within 20 minutes, after a sonogram, he was irate about the malpractice I'd been subjected to and told me my gallstones had totally blocked up and I needed my gallbladder removed, soon. He lined me up with a surgeon, we scheduled the surgery for as soon as he could fit me into his schedule, about 3 weeks later. I did the pre-surgery tests, like the treadmill, a few days later so I could go straight to surgery when the time came. I didn't last 3 weeks. After another week curled up on the bathroom floor, I called his office to see if we could do the surgery ASAP. He was at a different hospital doing different surgery, so they told me to go straight to the emergency room there. It took a couple of painful hours before he could see me, he reassured me, built up my confidence I'd feel better soon, and I started prepping for surgery. I woke up in a morphine fog a few hours later, I immediately felt like a poison had been removed and though I was foggy and weak, I did feel better. He arrived maybe a half hour later and explained that my gallbladder had gone gangrene and if I hadn't gotten the surgery a few hours earlier, I would have died of gangrene within 24 hours. What a relief that was. I asked if he saved my gallbladder in formaldehyde for me, he laughed and said no. I was disappointed about that, it would have made a great conversation starter. (Humor is helpful). The next day he was ready to release me but I asked if I could stay another day for the respiratory therapy, the leg compression therapy, and most of all, another day of morphine so I wouldn't need pain meds for a couple weeks. He agreed. I had no limit to morphine requests, I didn't abuse it. The next day, I had already made about 10 laps around the entire floor area when a nurse came in to tell me it was time to get up and start walking. I laughed and told her I'd seen her at her station goofing off during my 10 laps, which embarrassed her. A little while later I signed the forms to be released, got dressed, and made a bee line for the door before they even processed my release documents. The only humor about that story was of course, wanting to take my gallbladder home. That was about 25 years ago, and I'll caution anybody reading this that gallbladder removal does cause some digestion and bowel movement side effects that it can take a while to get used to. But if it has to go, it has to go, and humans adapt to the alteration. Thanks for your reply Susan, I have a ton of humorous stories from my life, but they're not about illness and emergency rooms. Sometimes just those memories help me get through the day. Best wishes.