On monday I woke up early to see if i owuld be able to get an appointment with Dr Kawa so he could take a look at my GJ tube and figure out what to do to fix it. Luckily they were able to get me an appointment at 12:40pm to see him. After scheduling the appointment I went upstairs to try one more time to flush the tube. To my surprise it flushed with out a problem. I couldn't believe it was flushing so easily. I checked to see if it was leaking where it had leaked before and it seamed not to be leaking. I was amazed and annoyed at the same time. I decided to hook my feeding pump up to what would happen. I ran it at a higher rate so that i would be able to tell sooner if something was wrong. I debated at this point as to whether or not i should keep my appointment. I decided I would make sure it was working before i cancelled.
I had already vented my stomach (pulled my stomach contents out with a suringe through the g tube port) so i knew my stomach was pretty empty. As it was feeding I started to feel pretty naucious and knew that something wasnt going right. I felt like throwing up and ended up venting my stomach again and thick yellow gunk started coming out. I wasn't quite sure if this was my feeds or not. I decided i needed more conclusive evidence to find out. So I got some water and added a bit of blue dye to it. I figured I could push that through the J tube and if it came back through the g tube then I knew for sure something wasn't working right. I'm glad I did this because with in a minute of pushing the blue die through, it was coming back out through the g tube. This ment something definatly wasn't right and needed to be fixed. If my feeds go into my stomach that means that I would probably throw them up and it completly defeats the point of having the J tube portion.
Dr Kawa was running a bit late so we ended up having to wait for about an hour to see him but once i told him what was going on and how i had figured it all out, he simply said that it needed to be replaced and he would see if he could have it done in the morning. He didn't have endoscopy time at the hospital on tuesdays so he called over there to see if they would be willing to do it before the first scheduled block of endoscopys. I was very grateful he was willing to do this and get it to work because at this point i had gone three days with out food and I really didn't want to go another. It takes it's toll very quickly on me.
Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to head over to the hospital. I really didn't sleep very well that night. I think I was a little bit nervious about the endoscopy and it didn't help that the cold i cought over the weekend seamed to be getting worse. My throat was pretty sore and my nose had turned into a leaky faucet. I was worried they might not do the endoscopy because of it. I was glad when it came time to leave because i was ready to get it over with.
We got to the hospital and checked in and then they had me get into the a hospital gown. It is sad that the people at the American Fork Hospital are starting to recognize me. I have been there too much these days. I feel like i should have a loyalty card to be earning points for frequenting their Hospital. Once i was ready and Dr Kawa arived, they wheeled me back to the endoscopy room. They then realized that I needed to be on a different bed since they would have to take some xrays once they were done, just to make sure it was all placed correctly. It was a little awekward just standing in the middle of this big room waiting for them to come back with the bed. Once they did, they finished getting everything ready to begin the procedure. While the nurses were preping, Dr Kawa told me he was impressed with my deductive work with the blue dye. He thought that was rather good. It is nice to hear that when most the time I feel like I get the "we think your crazy" looks. I then teased that he must be rubbing off on me as I feel like I see him more then I see my own friends.
Anyway they ended up getting the procedure started and its funny and I don't know why I even try but while the room was spinning from the drugs they gave me to sedate me, I kept thinking that I could probably stay awake. The next thing i knew i was heaving into a vomit bag and gaging on something in my throat. I came to find out, what was supposed to be a 30 min procedure turned into an hour long procedure. The frist time dr Kawa placed my J tube he didn't have too much trouble getting it past the duodenum and into the jejunum, this time he had a lot more troubles. He also had a hard time getting the end of the tube to clip to the side of the intestine. He said that I definitely have an area in my duodenum that is blocked and the blockage isn't coming from the inside. He said my insides look great but there is must be an outside force causing the compression. All this is consistant with the SMA Syndrom
When they do an endoscopy they will push air into the intestines to baloon them up and make them easier to see. The top picture is of just that, and you can see how well it expands. The bottome picture is of the area that is blocked. You can see that it is just not expanding like it should.
After the procedure I had to stay just for a little bit longer as my heart was racing and they wanted it to stabilize a bit more before I was released. Usually the endoscopies don't take a ton out of me but this one was a little bit harder to come back from. I think it was in part because I had been without food for 3 days and also it took them longer which means I had more sedation in me. Also they made the back of my throat, which was already swollen, even more swollen. My uvula was about tripple the size it should have been and because of that I could feel it in the back of my throat and every time i would try and swollow it would make me gag and it hurt.
We headed home and Sean made me go straight to bed. Later in the day he and Terry took Maia and Kassia to the Riverwoods in Provo to see Santa. Since the first time we tried to see santa did work out and even though I wasn't able to go, I really wanted them to be able to see Santa this year. Especially since this is Kassia's first Christmas.
They seamed to have had a good time and Sean said that Maia was pretty good with Santa and she even asked santa for snow angels. She was very sweet but didn't want to stand in line and of course wanted to run all over the place. She liked the Christmas lights and had fun with her daddy and grandpa. Kassia aslo seamed to enjoy the outing. On the way home they stopped and picked up some chicken nuggets and Maia ate a lot. Sean and Terry both were impressed with how much she had eaten. It was nice to have them home and that they had such a good outing.
No comments:
Post a Comment