Todd: Now, Barbara, it's really good to see you. I heard that you were in the hospital.

 

Barbara: Yes, I was. I got sick in august last year and luckily I was with my students and the lady was a nurse. She and her husband drove me to the hospital. I was doubled over. I was clutching my stomach. I had so much pain, a burning sensation in my chest. I didn't know what was happening. They took me to the hospital and they did some tests and they said, “ Well, you have gallstones.”

 

Todd: Gallstones. What exactly are gallstones?

 

Barbara: Well, next to your stomach, there is an organ called the gall bladder and the job of this organ is to hold some liquid which comes out of your liver and this liquid stays in your gallbladder and is saved for when it' needed, and when you eat something that contains fat or oil, the bile from the gallbladder is squirted out and goes into, perhaps your stomach or your intestine. I'm not sure which, and there it does something to help you to cope with the oil. Perhaps it binds with the oil or makes it easier for your body to get rid of it – to eliminate it.

 

Todd: OK, so when you have these gallstones, do they give you medicine? Do they remove them through surgery?

 

Barbara: There are a couple of different things to do. My gallbladder was working too hard because I was eating an unhealthy diet and not exercising enough, so inside my gallbladder, there were too big hard stones. Some people can have surgery to remove them. Some people have laser surgery, where the doctors aim a laser at the stones and shatter them, but the small pieces are still there and they have to be passed out of the body naturally and that is still a problem. With me, my gallbladder was inflamed and they looked at it and said, “No, it has to come out” so they took out the whole thing: the gallbladder and the two stones inside it. So now I have no gallbladder, so if I eat oily food… well I have no gallbladder to contain the bile from my liver which I need to process the oil.

 

Todd: Right, right.

 

Barbara: So, if I eat anything with oil I feel sick, and I usually… yeah, it's not good. So, I avoid oil, which is healthier anyway.

 

Todd: Well, I'm just glad that you're OK. That sound pretty awful.

 

Barbara: Oh, well, I'm fit now. Yeah, everything's OK.

 

Todd: Oh, good to hear.