I'm an American who had Gall Bladder attacks due to gallstones and my story is pretty much nothing like yours.
Went to the ER because I had sudden, intense aching pains (to the point of vomiting) in my upper abdomen. Doctor said it was gas, gave me Milk of Magnesia and billed me a few thousand dollars.
A few months later the pain returned and didn't go away for hours. It became chronic, so I went to my doctor. Because he's fucking amazing he knew right away that it was gallstones but wanted to get an ultrasound to confirm. Because I was uninsured he said they'd give me a discount.
So I get the ultrasound, and during, the lady performing it can't seem to find my gallbladder. She calls in someone else and they talk to each other for a bit, then continue on like nothing is wrong. When it's done I go back to my doc. They never sent him the results and never gave them to me. He doesn't charge me because that's the only reason why I went and says they'll call when my results are in. A month later he finally gets the results and they're inconclusive, and it doesn't seem like there's much that can be done without ordering more intensive and expensive tests.
The pain gets worse and goes on for a year and I'm just hoping it goes away at this point. Of course it doesn't, and one day it gets so bad that I can't sleep for two days and am dry heaving, so I go to the ER.
Get there at ~11 AM. Get put on a stretcher and left in a hallway at ~4 PM. Every so often someone comes to ask for my information. I think they drew blood but I honestly can't remember at this point because I wasn't staying conscious very well. Every now and then I'd wake up and ask someone what time it was just to see how long I've been there.
At 7 PM they move me out of the hallway and into a general area with curtain dividers that form makeshift rooms. I waited there until 10 PM when they put me in one of the makeshift rooms. At 11 PM they said they wanted to give me an abdominal MRI so I had to drink something in a cup.
At midnight I felt something inside 'pop' and the pain went away completely. Spoke to the lady when she came in, told her what it was, she said it sounded like a gallstone passed and that they were going to move me to a private room. Pain came back 30 minutes later. By 1 AM I was in a private room and they gave me dilaudid.
Slept all night and the next day they said they were going to give me an MRI. Nurses occasionally came in to fill me in on what was going on. My awesome doctor showed up to check on me. They say something about my bilirubin levels and my pee is now brown.
Eventually I get an MRI that confirms gallstones and they say they're going to transfer me to their sister hospital to have my gallbladder removed. Takes another two days for this to happen because, according to the awe-struck nurses, they were refusing to take me until I was near-lethal because of my lack of insurance -- until my Awesome Doctor chewed them out for being a bunch of assholes over the phone.
After something like four days in total I get transferred to another hospital. It takes me two days to get my surgery, and then another two days for them to release me. The nurses who did my prep at this new hospital were tremendously unprofessional. My two surgery-prep nurses kept giggling and asking me questions about whether I shave my genitals.
So I get the surgery and wake up a while later. Turns out that my internal organs (excluding heart) are reversed, which may be why the ultrasound missed by gallbladder. They had to do four cuts instead of the usual two/three because of that, and surgery took longer than it should have.
After the surgery they switch me to morphine, but it doesn't feel like it makes any difference after being on Dilaudid for (at this point) 6 days straight. Also I can't pee anymore and I've seen House, so I know that's a bad sign.
In the end I get some Vicodin and about 20k total in medical debt from beginning to end of this shitshow. Half of that was from the second hospital visit, and about a quarter was from the initial ER visit. I also get really fucking sick because, apparently, they're supposed to get you antibiotics post-surgery that they neglected to do.
So that's my American healthcare story. Our system is fucking catastrophic.