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I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic gallbladder cancer on April 19, 2021. I’ve been telling my doctors for years that I need my gallbladder out but I never had really bad “gallbladder attack.” I just had regular shooting pains so they put me off because it wasn’t apparent what was causing the pain and scans didn’t reveal anything other than some lesions on my liver that they were “keeping an eye on” for a few years with little change. My amazing rheumatologist, lupus doctor, made the call to dig deep. The surgeon still was not convinced and delayed me another 6 weeks to affirm that “You do need your gallbladder out. “ They gave me a non-rush schedule for surgery that put me 4 months out from the original visit. Low and behold, I had a gallstone blocking the duct to the liver, a clear margin on the side of the pancreas but not the side where the bile duct connects to the liver, and it had spread to my lymph nodes. They then did a scan and found it had spread to my liver and possibly lungs. A biopsy confirmed that the spots scattered throughout my lungs were metastatic gallbladder cancer as well. So this led to a very decisive approach since radiation and/or surgery was not an option. So we go forth in a battle hoping that treating this as a chronic disease and hope we can battle long enough for the researchers to find the cure. Not much research goes toward gallbladder cancer because it is very rare. So pray big or go home! 💜💜💜💚💚💚
You’re my angels 😇 and you give me wings to soar 🦋Melissa
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