(no subject)
that is my medical history of my stomach problems from 1995-1997 alone. i read it all last night. it was pretty fucking depressing. my dad brought it down with him so i could give it to my GI doctor when i go back to see him next time. i'll be going back to see him on the 19th for a follow up after the endoscopy that he did today. an endoscopy is where they sedate me and stick a tube with a camera down my throat to take a look at my esophagus and stomach to see if there are any abnormalities or strictures, to see if the valve at the bottom of the esophagus that lets food down and keeps acid from getting up is working properly (or in my case after the surgeries, the make-shift valve created from tying my stomach around my esophagus), and check to see if that wrap is still in place and working as intended. i've been getting food stuck in my throat again for a while now, like it did when all of this started. in fact the thing that led them down the trail that got them to do all the tests and eventually surgeries was a piece of chicken stuck on my throat for an entire night. it's not like i'm choking, obviously, not for an entire night. i can still breathe, it just gets lodged at the bottom of my esophagus and won't go up or down until it's fucking ready no matter what i do. sometimes it's minutes, sometimes it's hours. sometimes it's solid chunks of food, sometimes it's teeny tiny little bits of food bordering on liquid. it doesn't matter, there's no pattern. it's what started all of this 14 years ago, and it's been happening again.
so i was a little bit depressed reading that inch thick file last night. there was a lot of stuff in there that i'd forgotten about. a lot of stuff that i didn't know about. surprisingly little that i didn't understand, with the exception of handwriting. and then today when we went to the surgical center to have it done, i was fucking terrified. not of the actual procedure, because i've had dozens of these before and i know they're painless. they give me plenty of anesthesia which is always fun, so that was no problem. i just don't want to do this again.
so after some paperwork and about 2 hours of various waiting rooms changing clothes and prepping, they finally wheel me back and get me started on the anesthesia and bam TIM WAKE UP YOU'RE DONE! the whole thing took about 10 minutes, and they were telling me everything looked good. they took some biopsies and i'd have to wait for the results and for my follow up to talk to the doctor about those, but from what they saw today everything looked good. the wrap was holding up fine, there was no narrowing of the esophagus so they didn't need to widen it, it didn't look infected but again they'd have to wait for the results to be sure.
so good news and bad news. good news, nothing seems to be wrong. bad news, nothing seems to be wrong. why the fuck can't i swallow food again?