It started with belly aches.  They got to the point that we took MamaCharlie to the little clinic we had on Patch Barracks to see a doc.  I think the first diagnosis was gas or pre-ulcer or something;  they gave her some stuff for it that gagged her and didn't do any good at all.  Then one night she wound up writhing on the floor in agony and we flew across Stuttgart to the Army Hospital at Bad Cannstadt.  Our clinic on Patch was not an overnight operation...anything after hours had to go to the hospital ER.  From Vaihingen to Bad Cannstadt was about 20 klicks (kilometers, uninitiated) as the crow flies...but in Germany the crows don't make the roads, so it was a good half-hour drive in the dead of night, or an hour or more during daylight busy times.
By the time we got to the ER, the pain had stopped.  We went in anyway to see if anyone could figure out what was going on...why waste a record-setting race across town?  The wait at the ER ran into hours.  The examination produced no information other than MamaCharlie had had a belly ache.  So we drove over the river and across the city and got back to the apartment in time for me to get up and go to work.  It was a bleary day.  At the clinic, a day or two later on follow up, the docs decided it might be a nervous tummy and gave her Valium.  Valium had the effect of calming her so that at the next attack, she didn't scream quite so loudly.  So, in a Valium induced screaming calm, we raced across the river again...again setting a new record...and again, the pain had quit by the time we got to the ER.  No one but me had ever seen MamaCharlie in the throes of agony that she had experienced and we kind of felt like they didn't really believe us.  She slept all the way home.  
This process continued for several weeks.  They arbitrarily ruled out ulcers, gas, twisted gut, mange, and dengue fever without so much as a blood test.  The medics were pretty sure that there wasn't really anything physically wrong.  What we had here was a classic case of a malingering housefrau, probably fishing for some good pills.  But nothing in the way of diagnosis or cure.  
Another attack, another dash across Stuttgart...the attacks never came during the day for some reason, I guess she wasn't nervous enough in the daylight...another hours-long wait in the ER (without pain;  it stopped somewhere near the Neckar River), and another trip home.  And another follow-up the next morning.
A couple of days later we were watching AFN (one channel, no decisions), and an episode of MASH was on.  One of the patients exhibited the same symptoms as MamaCharlie.  They took out his gall bladder and he lived happily ever after, allbeit a little more gassy than he was before.  We looked at each other and wondered.
On our next visit to the clinic on Patch, the regular twelve-year-old internist that we ususally saw was not available.  They sent us in to see the Lieutenant Colonel that was in charge of the clinic, instead.  We sat quietly while he read through her record, bringing himself up to speed on her situation.  Before we could ask about her gall bladder, he looked up and asked, "Has anyone checked you for gall bladder disease?"  I nudged MamaCharlie and told her that he had watched MASH last night, too.  During the exam, he asked MC if her urine was orange.  She said it hadn't been.  Later, while we were waiting for something else at the clinic, she had to go to the girl's room and voila! Her pee was bright orange.  That guy was good.  That's how you get to be a colonel.
Well, it turned out that that was just what she had.  Appointments were made with surgeons and consultations were made, decisions were made and I finally felt like things were going in the right direction.  The surgeon told her that she should have her gall bladder out right away and sent us to the scheduling office where they set us up for a date three months in the future.  I didn't think that met the "right away" criteria, so we went back to the surgical floor and reported to the doc that to his schedulers, "right away" was some "way" off.  He said that it should happen sooner so he sent us home with the promise that he would see what he could do about getting us in sooner.  When we got back to the house, the surgical clinic called and said they had a cancellation and could we be back in a week so they could remove that pesky bladder?  
So, in July of '78, MamaCharlie's gall bladder was removed through a small cut in her abdomen, leaving a six-inch scar just below her rib cage and another one-inch scar below that for the drain-tube.  Thanks, Doc...sure glad we didn't sign up for the big hairy scar!  But the painful attacks stopped.  So in the end, I think she counted it a good trade.
Anyway, it was one of those adventures in the "House of our Hearts" that wasn't so much fun.  I remember going in to see MamaCharlie once she was in recovery;  they had her trying to blow little blue balls up and down in a foot-long tube.  It was supposed to help clear her lungs of the anesthesia.  Poor girl could barely move the balls an inch or so at first.  In them days, the ab cut required a week in the hospital.  They didn't allow kids under twelve on the ward (all four of ours were under twelve) so the only time the kids got to see their mom was when she got to go outside in a wheelchair.  Then once she was home, it was couch only for a couple more weeks. 
We have heard lots of stories of incompetence in the military medical system over the years.  I have to say that overall, we received excellent care and the people we had to deal with were usually very thoughtful and kind to us.  But on this occasion, we were just lucky that we saw the old guy instead of the young guy...and that the old guy liked TV.