So, that happened.

<engage ramble-mode>

On Saturday the 14th of May E and I went to see Dr Zhivago at The Maj. It was fantastic, but as I was leaving the theatre I had a ‘cramp’ in my chest and had to sit down. It passed, and I gave it no further thought.

That night, we had some deeply awesome dumplings for dinner. I ate more of them than was in any way called for.

Around 11:30pm that night, my chest began to hurt. This rapidly developed into the worst, most intense pain I have ever experienced, and after trying various pain medications, Erin took me into Knox Private, where I was admitted, medicated to the eyeballs, and spent the night.

In the morning, the pain was gone, and I was sent home with an appointment for ultrasound to explore the possibility of gallstones on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday morning, on my way to work, I stopped in for my ultrasound. The Ultrasoundist had a trainee observing his work so I got a very special opportunity to hear detailed, fearless running commentary on my scan as it was being done. Apparently I don’t have cancer (!!!) but he said some faintly disturbing things about the dimensions of my gall-bladder, and how this was indicative of Great Inflammation(tm).

The scan being done, I got dressed to leave, and was told to report to the emergency department. (WTF?!)

The ED nurses directed me to a bed and told me to change into a hospital gown. (WTF!!!?!?)

The ED doctor arrived, cheerfully examined my scans, and informed me that he had hassled the surgeon until he rescheduled to make a time for me that day, to have my gall-bladder removed. (AAARGH! WTF?!?!?!?!!!)

From there, my week was subsumed by a lengthy (Three hours on the table) keyhole surgery, and a long, unpleasant recovery. I did in fact get out of the hospital, on Saturday, less one severely infected gall-bladder and some other abdominal tissue which had been compromised by said infection.

As I tweeted at the time, there were proverbial Little Glass Vials.

As of today, I am more or less recovered, and back at work. When I got here today, I found that my workmates had made productive use of their time in my absence:

Indeed:

And even:

If this all just seems weird to you, you may need to watch Dexter.

So, yeah, that happened.