Paracentesis

In June 2013 My DW was having severe abdominal pain for a month. Two E.R. trips and Both times they did CT scans, X-rays, and full blood work up and said all was normal and she was having gas related pain. Two weeks following the last E.R. visit we traveled from Oklahoma to Virginia for a family reunion. All along the trip DW kept getting worse. Ultimately things turned critical and we rushed her to E.R. where they found her pancreas enzymes were higher than they had ever seen. She was immediately put in ICU. The Dr. told me she only had a 30%-40% chance of pulling through. It took two weeks to get her stable enough to remove a very diseased gall bladder. She now has a damaged pancreas. Upon return to Oklahoma I went to our local hospital and requested the medical records from her E.R. visits to include all tests. I discovered that every test they had done showed she was having gall bladder issues and had an enlarged pancreas. At the time she did not have insurance. I think the hospital released her for that reason. I said all of this to say this: don't take a chance on upper abdominal pain. P.S Ironically, the hospitalist at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, VA told us that her very first patient after residency died from pancreatitis and she was not as bad as my DW. I thank God every day that she pulled through. And a big shout out to Mary Washington Hospital and physicians as they wrote off our entire bill.