Gastro Appt

Super wiped right now. Stressful day. Hour and a half at ped doing the annual check up, which was draining for a variety of reasons. Then a mad dash home to get the toddler set up with a sitter and off to the gastro.

The deal is, I have pain but no relevant test results. There should be no pain. It's frustrating. I am on board with the idea that there's nothing wrong, but my body does not care and persists with this RUQ pain.

I will have an endoscopy with ultrasound. The GI Doc worded it very delicately and was super polite, but I gather that I was just too fat for the RUQ ultrasound they did earlier, so we'll do another one.

Ultrasounds must not be very sensitive because I ain't that fat no more. Or maybe my lard is just impenetrable.

I don't have IBS. There are no issues on the exit end, but I was prescribed an IBS anti-spasmodic anyway. I probably won't take it because the issue for me is not the pain, but that there is pain at all. I can mostly live with the pain so long as the GERD is controlled.

But there shouldn't be pain. Or heaviness.

My spidey sense feels strongly that there is something not right, but I have no idea what to do when the endoscopy and ultrasound come back normal. Push for a colonoscopy? Look at the ovarian cyst in there (although how it would make my gallbladder jerk like it was in a mosh pit, I don't know)?

Both the PCP and GI docs mentioned something about a surgical consult, which confuses me. Don't you see a surgeon to cut something out or is there some diagnostic angle that I am unaware of? Will they be able to find what the tests have missed?

What do surgeons do with patients with no diagnosis? Randomly remove organs?

I am in no hurry to have any surgery. I haven't even been off steroids for 2 months. If it's not an emergency, I'd rather just wait. My main concern is to be sure I'm safe, that this pain is not indicative of a serious pathology. It is so specific and chronic, it's hard to accept test results saying everything is fine.

Stabbed in the Back, but Otherwise Fine

So my perfectly healthy gallbladder has taken to stabbing me in the back. For no good reason other than it can.

Sigh.

I really hope an answer or solution (a simple, easy one) can be found because this is just getting ridiculous.

Other than that, I perked up a bit on Sunday and had a pretty full day. 2 hours at the pool where I gave myself a sunburn via incompetent sunscreen administration. I'm pretty sure the dermatologist is going to disown me when they see how tan I've gotten.

Despite my garish sun hat, which I wear everywhere, I need to step up my sun game. I haven't been outside so much on such a regular basis in years. Not even last year, when I had a very active summer. The introduction of the pool into our routine has had more of an impact than anticipated. However, it is very good for the toddler and her motor/sensory issues, which is why we go almost daily.

After the pool, I rode my bike all over the neighborhood for about 20 ass-kicking minutes (wimpy, I know, but I'm starting from like a -10 on the fitness scale). Then I did some jump squats to start easing back into strength cardio work outs.

I also went to the grocery store. So a rather busy day for a former adrenal zombie. A wave of fatigue took me out at the end, nixing another store run, but I kept it together with lots of water and a few pickles.

Monday, I did Zumba. I hated it. It was hard on my knee, which is still recovering from the Amelia Bedelia-esque fall at the pool. I did however get a good workout and, as a result, was quite the space cadet on the way home.

Sunday no nap, I tried, but couldn't sleep. On Monday I konked and that was before Zumba. I've also had some adrenal pain, which makes NO sense, but it is what it is.

Hopefully all this 'stress' is prompting my body to get a clue and make more cortisol.

Really good news...I have lost about 2 pounds so far. Which is the first weight loss I've seen in about 7 months. So major progress even though the number is teeny tiny. Let's see if I can get to 10lbs lost before vacation in August.

With a Little Help from My Pills

Took 5mg steroids today because...

-exhausted
-weak
-no appetite for the last several days (ate only one meal yesterday and am forcing myself to eat)
-loopy
-BP trending low but not bottoming out per se, just feels like it is
-irritable
-muscle cramps
-HIDA scan was way stressful

Other possible solutions to explore include...

-Tinkering with BP med dose or discontinuing altogether
-Putting more carbs in low carb
-Staying far, far away from medical procedures of any kind
-Never seeing doctors again because they order said medical procedures
-Stop complaining about anything because that means I see doctors who order said medical procedures

Still can't say yet if the 5mg helped but I'm waiting for it to kick in aaaaany second now.

I also hit my head harder than anyone should this morning, which is known as NOT HELPING. We have a small house and the concession we made to have a dining room, (teeny) family room and (tiny) play room on the first floor was that we shoved our bed in the dormer nook upstairs, which has a vicious widow's peak.

Yes, we sleep in a hallway that occasionally attacks our skulls.

Note to self: Never jump out of bed.

The HIDA scan results are in. Just waiting for the doc to review them and call me back. Still time to place your bets. Yay or nay on gallbladder removal? Since I seem to specialize in symptoms that don't test well, I say nay. Also, I have learned that GERD meds totally jack up the gallbladder.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to self medicate with chocolate and then take something for my aching head.

HIDA Scan That Would Not End

Thank goodness I have someone visiting who can just up and toddler sit for 5 hours because the two hour HIDA scan? Went on and on and on.

My gallbladder wouldn't dump the radioactive dye. They had me walk. And walk. Jump up and down. Go to the cafeteria and sniff food in the hopes of prompting the gallbladder to empty. I got in a full 30 minute workout trying to get that stuff to move.

Two hours later, it finally started to empty. Emphasis on started. They went back and forth trying to decide if the dye had really moved into my small intestine or not. The doctor said no. So I had to walk some more. Then three nuclear techs hemmed and hawed over the films (video?) and, finally, everyone agreed it had moved.

So they did the CCK thing so they could measure the gallbladder ejection fraction. For something that was previously so sluggish, it did manage to contract and move stuff along with the CCK.

I was released four hours later only to return because I bled through the band aid and all over my shirt. Of course I wore a nice shirt. Which is now ruined.

While it is not normal for the dye to take 2 hours to clear the gallbladder, that doesn't mean the HIDA scan is abnormal.

Place your bets. Will the HIDA scan show the gallbladder has to go? Or is it just a GERD gut motility thing?

I bet the HIDA scan will be normal. I think it's probably a gut motility issue.

On the upside, the test reproduced the appendicitis symptoms so now I know I feel that way when the gallbladder isn't emptying like it should.

Gut Stunts

So I called the doctor about the GERD and diffuse abdominal pain that has been haunting me since Thanksgiving.

And their staff couldn't seem to grasp what I wanted.

1. Better medication for the short term.

2. GI referral for the long term. Time to get scoped and imaged out the wazoo.

I sense I confused them.

"What have you been doing to deal with it?" they asked me, I suspect trying to wrap their minds around how someone can walk around with a complaint for so long.

All I can say is they must have better experiences with health care than I do. Also, I know there are no gallstones and ultrasound imaging was normal as of early 2010. I'm weird like that. Paying attention and sh*t.

If they knew precisely how long I've dealt with this pain, off and on, they'd probably hang up on me. This has been going on since I was in my 20s, only just becoming daily in the past year. Ignoring it is a pretty ingrained habit at this point.

It was not until the GERD blew up in conjunction with intensifying pain that I paid attention.

GERD I can't ignore. It is pretty much the worst pain I have ever known. Worse than labor (lots of things are worse than labor FYI, like the stomach flu, seriously). Because of GERD, I understand why people kill themselves due to pain.

If every day of my life was GERD on a rampage? I don't know if I could do it.

Prior to GERD meds, my parent had many ER trips for stomach pain. They vomited daily. They couldn't sleep and now they are pre-cancerous. Prilosec etc... came to late for them.

Medication has worked for me for 16 years.

Why has it stopped?

More importantly, is there any way we can get to where eating chocolate is not an act worthy of Evil Knievel?

Right now things are slightly better, but there are a lot of rules I have to follow to hold it all together. It's time to figure out what is going on.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

1.The asthma has done a great job of making my lungs feel like they've been scrubbed on a cheese grater. With gusto. It is abating, bit by bit, this is not serious asthma, just painful asthma.

Further I am tired. Whether I am tired enough to need more steroids is still open to interpretation. Possibly I am in the denial stage of grief.

I am so close to breaking free, to have to significantly updose again, well, I worry it would reset the clock back to zero. Which would basically crush my soul.

2.I purposely used just my first initial on the ebook. M. Last Name. Now I'm getting what passes for fan mail amongst the business crowd and they all assume I'm a guy. The language used in the emails is different too, lots of guy oriented slang.

I wonder what would happen if they knew I had boobs and a vagina?

3.I think my gallbladder needs to be Raptured the hell out of my body. I am having problems. No stones, but I need a function scan to see if it's working (this was on the schedule but I got pregnant and it had to be scrapped). I suspect not and my body seems to be on the path to gallbladder implosion, the ante is ratcheting up.

The pain is daily, has been daily since Thanksgiving. Now heartburn is a problem despite avoiding food and taking extra Prilosec. Nor do I think that vomiting episode a few weeks ago was a bug, I think it was a GI mutiny.

This means at some point between now and the next decade, I will go see someone about it. I've been thinking to go to the same GI who treats my parent since this GERD GI crap is familial. There might be some benefit to working with someone who has seen how the genes play out.

Maybe I can avoid Barret's, although my parent has not been so lucky. (I know gallbladder is not specific to Barret's, but GI crap is all related, at least I think so for me.)

4. The toddler made a huge mess on the carpet with her jello. Smeared it right into the carpet she did. When I asked her to clean it up, she began to sob and meltdown.

I hadn't yelled at her. Had remained very calm in fact, but she was distraught.

Finally I said, "I still love you. You are still my special girl. Please clean up the mess."

Worked like a charm. It was really something. Gonna have to remember that one.