I am the first person in my family to fall pregnant with twins, and it felt like a miracle. So, when I started experiencing a sudden pain in my chest at five months pregnant, I assumed it was normal. It was a sharp pain between my breasts that left me gasping for air.
I was shaking, with sweat pouring down my face afterward, but I brushed it off assuming it was somehow linked to pregnancy. But when it happened again, I mentioned during a checkup and they suggested the twins might be pushing on my organs. The pain then started occurring monthly then daily.
I assumed it would stop when I gave birth to my sons, who are now 18 months old. Instead, it began affecting my everyday life. The episodes would last around a few minutes, but I became nervous about leaving the house with my twins and my eldest son, now 2, in case it happened while I was out.
When the pain struck, I couldn't even hold my babies. Sometimes it left me curled up in a ball, crying. Other times, I found myself punching the area between my breasts, desperately hoping to ease the pain.
Two months after giving birth, I called my doctor and said I couldn't tolerate it any longer. Thankfully, they took me seriously from the start and referred me to a gastroenterology team, who discovered gallstones. They asked whether there was a trigger, but there wasn't.
The pain seemed to come out of nowhere. Sometimes it would wake me from sleep, and I'd wake the entire house thinking I was having a heart attack. Between juggling life as a mom of three children under the age of 2 and dealing with the attacks, I was mentally and physically exhausted.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
