A few less wrinkles and a bit more energy

Many of you have wondered how I have been doing since I had my procedure done on the 15th, so I figured it was time to give a recap of the last 12 or so days. 

 

I just had to start of with this cute face because well you can never have enough of it and I got a few extra snuggles before she headed off to the neighbors house to play, while I headed to the hospital. 

 Here I am all prepped and ready to go for what looks like surgery but there was not cutting of flesh during this procedure. It was just my 16th endoscopy done under general anesthesia. At first I didn't think they were going to let Sean come back but once I had all the tubes and monitors connected and had answered all the "do you feel safe at home" questions, they let him come sit with me until they rolled me back.

After the procedure was done and I finally woke up from the anesthesia, the surgeon came in and talked to me about how everything went. I have to say, usually at this time I am still fairly groggy and although I can remember most of what is said there are parts I miss understand, however this time, the anesthesiologist who did my anesthesia, did a fantastic job of giving me the right amount of medicine. I woke up feeling fairly clear minded and not nearly as groggy as I usually do.

 

 

 

The light blue arrows show the stenosis and the green arrow shows where the opening to the pylorus is 

So Dr Meara, the surgeon, said that everything looked pretty good and that my pyloric valve actually opened up pretty well. He didn't do a balloon dilation as he said that it wouldn't have done any good and proceeded to inject the Botox. He said he wanted me to contact him weekly with how I was doing and to follow up in 4 weeks. The interesting thing though is that in the report he sent home with me, he noted that I had developed mild stenosis around the Pyloric valve which he didn't mention to us after the procedure. It is something I'm going to ask him about when I see him as from the research I have found it can become a cause of blockage to the stomach. It is pretty rare to see in adult but my history of vomiting can be a cause of it. I also find it interesting that this is now showing up, as when I had an endoscopy in February at the Mayo clinic there was no mention of this.

 After I was cleared to go home, I was pretty alert and after about an hour or so I felt pretty good. What ever concoction of drugs the gave me left me feeling great. I didn't really have any pain and I wasn't too tired so after I got some post procedure snuggles from Kassia, I decided that I was hunger and was going to try eating. So I started with some fruit snacks and they went down fine so then I started raiding the kitchen. Not really but since I had been on a liquid diet for two days prior I was ready to eat something solid. So I had some bread and then some crackers and graduated from there. I also drank probably 16 ounces over the course of a couple hours and to my amazement, I wasn't nauseous, I didn't have any urge to vomit and I kept it all down! It was amazing to see such a noticeable difference! I could eat but most importantly I could drink and it was not coming back up!

 That night I helped put the girls to bed and I just had to document the way that Maia sets out her clothes for school the next morning. It doesn't really show in the picture but she has greenish pants and a green shirt as I told her that the next day was St Patrick's day. Unfortunately for her I didn't realize that the next was actually just Thursday and not St Patrick's day Friday till after she was on her way to school the next morning. I blame it on the procedure but I really believed the next day was Friday. 

Anyway after the girls went to bed and I was resting on the couch, I think the medicine that they gave me must of warn off because I started to not feel very well at all. I started to become very nauseous and started having quite a bit of pain under my right rib cage and back. I also started to notice that I was burping a lot. Before the Botox, burping would usually be closely followed by vomiting but not in this case it was purely just air. Although I was uncomfortable, I just turned my heating pad on and went to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up in quite a bit of pain. I sat up and so much air escaped my stomach I thought I was going to wake up the girls in the next room. I was able to go back to sleep but around 6:30 in the morning I woke up and the same thing happened again, except this time I was so nauseous that I ended up throwing up. By that point the girls were up so the day started. Luckily Sean was able to take the day and be home because I was miserable. 

The next few days anything I ate caused me to be so uncomfortable. I was having terrible heart, nausea, migraines, and a huge increase in abdominal pain. By Saturday night I was curled up in a ball contemplating going to the ER because the pain was so intense. Luckily the pain med's started kicking in I was able to get some rest. The next day I just avoided eating anything so I could get through church and not be miserable. I really was at the point that I would have gladly taken the vomiting back to get out of the misery I was experiencing.

 I don't normally show off my stomach but this kind of shows the bloating I was dealing with. Usually I have a fairly flat stomach and it was poking out so much that Maia asked me if I had a baby in my belly. She has lately been asking me if she can have a baby brother. So I had to explain to her that I was just full of gas and not baby. 

By Monday a very sweet friend suggested that I take gas-x and that mixed with enzymes and probiotics, I was able to finally start to get some relief. Tuesday I started to feel better and the bloating started to go down. The problem is that food would normally sit in my stomach, breaking down in stomach acid,  for a little while to before moving out but with my valve being stuck open, food is able to move right out of my stomach and my intestines have a harder time digesting. The bacteria in the intestines produce gas when they digest food so if they have to work harder, they produce more gas, or in my case, enough air to fill up a hot air balloon. 

 

 On Tuesday, at 9 o'clock at night, Maia woke up throwing up and then by midnight Kassia woke up throwing up as well. Neither of them had fevers just complained of their tummies hurting. That day I had fed the girls a smoothie made with Acai berry juice and then for dinner they had some tomato soup that needed to be eaten. Sean and I ended up taking shifts with them through the night and the next morning they were done throwing up. In the afternoon, Maia wanted more smoothie so I made her one with the Acai juice. Sean ended up drinking a good amount of the smoothie too. Well Maia threw it up with in about 15 min and then threw up again 20 min later. Later that night Sean started puking his guts out. In the 12+ years that I have known Sean, I have never seen him vomit that much. It was impressive but lead me to the conclusion that we were dealing with a bought of food poisoning. The Acai juice got dumped. What I find ironic is the one person who throws up the most in this family was the only one who didn't throw up those days. Thank goodness!

By Thursday the girls were feeling better and although their appetites were lacking their imagination was not. They were playing all sorts games with their play dough.   

Through all this I was grateful I was starting to feel better. By Saturday morning, Kassia woke the whole house up with her screaming, since Sean was still recovering a bit and was going to try and play basketball later, I got up with the girls. For the first time in a long time, I woke up feel good!  I had energy. It was amazing. Since I felt good and the weather was nice, I decided to take the girls out for a walk. They loved playing in a field near our house and it was wonderful to be out enjoying it all. 

Kassia and I at the Stake center watching Sean play basketball

 Maia was not really interested in watching Sean play so she decided to play teacher to about 7 kids probably 3 years old and younger. The amazing thing is that she held them captivated for over 15 min. The other parents couldn't believe that their kids were just sitting there listening to Maia babel. It was pretty impressive.

Sean is on the far left, running.

 

And finally to last night. We had a tornado warning and headed down to the basement right before what should have been bed time. Luckily they weren't already asleep. The girls thought it was so funny that our dog Parley kept looking at me underneath the bus that I was sitting on. 

To wrap this post up, I am feeling better and am very grateful for the way I am feeling. I also know that the Botox is temporary. I don't know how long it will last but I will take it for as long as it does. When it does wear off we will look at our options but it is a relief to know what the problem right now is and that has been most the battle is just figuring out what is wrong.