u/DeifniteProfessional

Around a year ago, I had a bit of a gnawing pain in (what felt like) my stomach, about a month after starting a diet (keto adjacent) to lose weight. A doctor suggested it was likely some form of gastritis and should monitor it then get seen in a few days. It passed and I was fine.

Then sometime during the summer, I had what I can only describe as severe pain in the centre of my upper abdomen, right below my ribs. The pain changed based on the position I was in (and I found a position where it completely went away) and I put it down to bloating caused by fructans or perhaps a new wheat intolerance or something. It got to night time and I couldn't sleep, and I went for a walk, because apparently that's what relieves trapped gas. During this walk, there was like a "woosh" and the pain vanished.

I had a few more throughout the rest of the year, including some mild ones that vanished after an hour or two, usually after walking. During this year, it's been pretty quiet. Had a mild "attack" early April which passed after a walk after a few hours, but this weekend I had an attack that lasted an entire day. It wasn't until yesterday when I started feeling better, but also clocked my urine was very dark, and my eyes weren't yellow, but weren't exactly clean white either, which led me onto the possibility that actually, we're suffering from symptomatic gallstones. My urine is fine now, and I have no pain right now, but there was clearly some fuckery afoot.

Thinking back, there's no obvious trigger. I've had some disgustingly fatty and carby days without a hinderance.

I have requested a GP appointment to get some tests done.

The trouble is, I know the outcome is usually surgery to remove the gallbladder, and if I'm honest, I'm scared. I do not like being in hospitals at the best of times, the idea of going under the knife, even if it's a keyhole surgery, quite honestly sends me into a panic

We buy 100-200 laptops per year, spaced out in small batches.

We have always ordered directly from vendor websites. The thing is, you still then get various bloatware. Generally it's just Microsoft Office now, but it's not a clean image, and usually is set to US layout, with US office installed, which is not ideal for a not US business.

I understand having a business relationship with Dell/HP/a VAR would get me clean images, or even autopilot (though we don't currently have plans to try to use Autopilot), but then I see that people with Dell account managers are also order 100 laptops every time, and I think maybe I'm just too small and should just stick to putting my own image on devices. May sound like a silly basic question to some, but it's one of those things that's always been what it is for me, and I want to explore how similar sized businesses handle it