The Unexpected Piece of Med Tech That Saved My Life

On a crisp spring morning four years ago, I woke up and started my day off like any other. I rolled out of bed, jumped in the shower, and began thinking about what the work day ahead of me would entail.

All was well. All was normal. That is, until something absolutely bizarre and terrifying happened.

Out of nowhere, a wave of the most intense and unexpected pain I’ve ever felt engulfed my body like a ton of bricks smashing through a windshield. I was literally floored in my shower and could not walk or speak. Fortunately my phone was in the bathroom with me and I managed to text my Dad an urgent message for help.

Within a matter of minutes my dad had left work and showed up to take me to the nearest urgent care facility, only a couple of miles away. My father wheeled me to the front desk and after seeing a doctor only a few minutes, it was deemed that I was unusually dehydrated.

But none of this added up. At this point in my life, I was healthier than I’ve ever been. I was at my ideal weight and was adamant about drinking plenty of water each and every day. I was utterly confused — and honestly, I was immensely scared by what was going on.

Once I finally got to the nearest hospital and entered the ER, the confusion only continued to grow.

No one could seem to figure out what was going on. At one point there were literally six doctors all scratching their heads around me. I was in more pain than I could handle, couldn’t drink water despite being dehydrated, and felt odd pressure all around my torso.

One doctor suggested that it may be meningitis, which is an illness where the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord becomes infected and inflamed. I was not very familiar with the illness up until that point, but quickly found out how they tested for it.

An intern stepped in and attempted to do a spinal tap on me, not once or twice, but three times! Finally, on the third attempt, enough of my spinal fluid was drawn so that it could be tested for meningitis. The pain associated with getting three spinal taps was certainly tormenting and frustrating. In hindsight however, the temporary severe discomfort was minor in comparison to what I would have experienced if I had contracted full-blown meningitis.

The doctors weren’t confident that this was the answer to what was ailing me, so the first day I was in the hospital, more tests were run on me than I could keep track of. I had a CT scan, a heart scan, and a full torso ultrasound. Oddly enough, the ultrasound is what unearthed the surprising reality of my situation.  

Not Just for Pregnant Women

It’s estimated that around 125 million ultrasounds are performed each year, in the U.S. alone. While the majority of these are for women who are expecting a child, this longstanding form of medical technology can be used for a variety of other purposes.

In my case, it was an ultrasound that discovered the cause of all my sporadic discomfort. As it turns out, my gallbladder was more than double its regular size and needed to be removed immediately. A KCIM piece elaborates on this, giving examples of common alternative uses of ultrasounds:

• Causes of upper abdominal pain, including gallstones, cholecystitis, pancreatitis, kidney stones, or blockage in blood vessels of the intestines.
• Causes of lower abdominal pain, including appendicitis, inflammation of the small and large intestines, and inguinal hernias.
• Abnormalities that may be present in the abdominal organs, such as masses or enlargements in the spleen or liver.

Although it was unbeknownst to me at the time, ultrasounds are actually used for many other reasons beyond just examining developing fetuses.

Before I knew it, I was being prepped for surgery which was happening only a couple hours later. The surgeons told me that I was incredibly lucky that my gallbladder hadn’t already ruptured.

The following day I woke up to a doctor explaining to me that I also had another medical issue to face: neisseria meningitidis, a predecessor to meningitis. Although my enlarged gallbladder was not a direct cause or side effect of the pre-meningitis, the two exacerbated each other.

Don’t Take Modern Medical Technology for Granted

Ultimately, I made a full recovery from all this. I was extremely lucky that they caught both of these issues early on. Otherwise the outcome would have likely resulted in a month or more in the hospital, rather than the mere five days I was there.

The main point to draw from all of this is that I am lucky to have lived through this random experience in a modern time. Many doctors and nurses reminded me of this while I was recovering. They said things like, “If this would have happened fifty years ago, it would have been a whole different story.”

Because of modern medical technology, they were able to figure out my complex and sporadic ailments and combat them very quickly. This is something I do not take for granted. Appreciate the fact that we live in a time where it’s possible to piece together even the trickiest of medical puzzles. I never would have imagined that an ultrasound would save my life, but I’m thankful that the technology was available as a modern day convenience.