I had mine removed in 2/09, and it saved my life.
On a Saturday night, I began experiencing a pain in my right side right where pain in the gallbladder would be. It started dull, but continued to get worse. At first, I thought I had just pulled something. On Sunday, it wasn't hurting too bad; so, I went to a gun show with Volgrad and Woody the Infidel. We ate lunch at a Steak & Shake, and it didn't agree with me. That night, the pain got worse and worse.
On Monday morning I called my doctor, and he said to go to the ER, which I did. The pain was very localized, which the doctor asked about repeatedly because gall bladder attack pain usually radiates. They ended up doing a scan, and sure enough I had gall stones.
The ER doc told me it could be treated medically or surgically. I decided on surgery then so that six months down the road I wouldn't be forced into surgery (all this happened as I was leaving the PD for the SO). The ER doc referred me to a surgeon that day. Last thing the ER doc said to me that the localized pain was very unusual.
I see the surgeon, and have surgery scheduled for that Wednesday (2 days after ER visit). The surgery was to be a laparoscopy.
Go in for the surgery, and everything appears like it will be a normal procedure. As I am waking up in recovery, the surgeon shows me a picture and tells me some crazy tale that just doesn't make sense.
I wake up later in my room, and the surgeon is there. He asked if I remembered what he told me in recovery, which I didn't quite remember.
Turns out that I did have gall stones; so, he went ahead and removed the gall bladder. However, the source of the pain was dead tissue that adhered to the abdominal wall and was brewing up to blow out in a full scale infection which they probably would have found in my autopsy. The picture he showed me was of the abdominal wall before he excised all of the infected tissue.
If it hadn't been for the gall stones showing up in the scan, they never would have done the surgery.
As for the recovery, I probably could have been back to work in a week, but my duty belt came into direct contact with my incision, a fact I didn't realize until I put it on for the first time (ouch!!); so, I took two weeks.
As for post surgery symptoms, I don't have the normal issues with greasy food. If I eat anything that doesn't agree with me, it wakes me up at precisely 0322 hours to tell me about it...
Sometimes in the evening, I have issues with nausea, but about a quarter dose of pepto seems to fix it right up.