Get Your Rib On

You would think that the world had ended for me. I was sitting in my room one night after attending the annual Rib Fest in Reno, NV. The Rib Fest is a wonderful 3 day event of worshipping all things pork. Especially ribs. There are 50 different vendors trying their best to win over the hearts and taste buds of those ready to gorge themselves. And let me tell you, I gorged. I lost count of how many ribs I had eaten after my 2nd or maybe 3rd rack. For those of you out there that don't know how the rib accounting system works, a rack is 12 ribs. So I ate my fair share and then some. I went to bed that night feeling like Kobayashi after an eating competition. The next morning, I was up and at em' like a spry chicken so I decided to look up the local buffets in the area. The Grand Sierra Resort just so happens to have an all you can eat brunch buffet. So I thought to myself "Self, why not pour about 5 more pounds of fatty food down my gullet." My self should have told me otherwise. It was not a good idea.

About 8 hours passed before the stone in my gall bladder decided to block the substance that keeps the whole system moving. Quick anatomy lesson, your gall bladder produces bile, the bile is what breaks up the food in your stomach so you can digest. I had a gall stone blocking the passage out of my gall bladder which caused a back up of bile. Basically it was like my initial reaction to seeing the ball hit the goal post in the recent BYU loss to Utah. But over and over again for about an hour. And that is about the time when the diva inside of me decided to come out. This is the point in the story where I want to introduce my wife Stephanie. Little bit of background on her, she is a nurse, mother of two, and all around Bad-A. Yep, I said it, she is the mother of two. My wife has been through 2 terrible pregnancies to bring our beautiful children into this world. We are talking Epic amounts of sickness pregnancies. She is going to be mad that I am telling you this but she would keep a bowl under her bed and every single morning for almost her entire 9 month pregnancy she would wake up, pick up the bowl, and immediately vomit. This was the norm for her for both pregnancies. One time we were in the parking lot of an I-Hop about to go in and eat a delicious stuffed french toast and she had to vomit. So what does she do? She takes a sandwich bag out of her purse, vomits perfectly into it without spilling a drop, throws the bag o' puke in the garbage can, and heads inside to eat her delicious french toast. Superwoman? Yep.

Yummy!

Back to my "Woe is me" story. As I was having my gall bladder attack I was telling my wife that I loved her and I was going to die. I was telling her not to marry another man. I was telling her that I had buried a bunch of money in the backyard. Ok well some of those things I just said are not true. I was being a bit of a Beyonce, mixed with Christina Aguilera, and throw in a little Whitney Houston minus the drug abuse. My wife being the nurse that she is stayed very calm the entire time. I have a feeling it had to do with my life insurance policy but I have not been able to confirm that. Once we got to the hospital I really started flipping out. One thing I don't get about emergency rooms is how little they treat you like you are having an emergency. I was thinking my life is surely over at this point if I dont get immediate help and the receptionist is sitting there watching Jersey Shore.  There were numerous ideas that I had concocted in my head of how to make a big scene and run back into where all the doctors are and demand to be seen. I did not do that and eventually they took me back to be treated. After many hours and a whole lot of morphine (nasty drug) they decided to do an ultrasound on me and found out it was gall stones. I think that night I told my wife I was sick or didn't feel well about 500 times. The entire 9 months she was pregnant I think she may have told me that 5 times.

This leads to today. I have been on bed rest since yesterday after I had my surgery and have been waited on by my wonderful wife hand and foot. After my wife gave birth she was in bed for a total of about 12 hours. I have been in bed for well over 24 hours and don't plan on getting up for at least a few more days. Every chance I get I do this thing called "milking it". I am very good at "milking it" but my wife is onto me and calls my bluff quite often. Moral of the story, Dont eat too many ribs, but if you do eat too many and get a gall stone you better learn how to milk it.