Wednesday, January 4, 2012: Don't you love it when life hands you a teaching moment on a silver platter? That's how I feel some days, especially when some doctor teaches me a new vocab word that he learned long ago in med school. Gee, thanks, docs...just what I wanted to learn today!
Yesterday was the worrisome Endoscopy, worrisome because I had no idea what to expect. You know, you can watch all the You Tube videos you want and read all the Google info you can swallow, and you're still going to lie awake at night and worry about what's going to happen to your own poor body. That's what I did. But I also experienced another "tender mercy" in the wee hours of Tuesday morning: Dean had given me a priesthood blessing Monday night, and very simply asked Heavenly Father to give me comfort and help me feel peaceful about the test. I went to bed, still fretful, but woke up about 2:00 in the morning...and felt absolute peace. It was as if I was being wrapped in a soft, fluffy cloud. I had no urges to cough (that was one of my biggest fears, that I would cough the tube/camera right out of my throat), no fear, and was able to fall back asleep for a few more hours. Thank you, Lord...and Deaner.
The three of us were out the door and into the morning dark, dropping J off at her friend's house right around 7:00 AM. We love these friends and their willingness to keep J's schedule halfway normal--and to feed her a good breakfast! She never eats breakfast at home, claiming she doesn't "have time", but when she described her breakfast at C's house, she said that her egg and toast were perfect, "probably because they're made with a loving touch!" How cute is that? Dean and I arrived at the Redwood Clinic right on time, 7:30 on the dot. No one else at the check-in desk, only two other people in the waiting room. The morning news was on TV. Dean started coughing (again) as soon as he sat down, but once he was settled, his cough settled down, too. (I told him that the nurses might make him wear a mask, which he was okay with.) It wasn't more than a few minutes before I was called back to the prep room. I changed into a gown and answered a bunch of questions for the nurse. There was a woman waiting in the bed next to mine (we were separated by a curtain), and I wondered if she thought or felt anything when she heard me say that I have melanoma. The nurse then put in my IV for the meds and hit a good vein, first thing. She turned to go, saying she was going to check if they were ready for me, and here came the "sedation nurse", ready to walk me to the Endoscopy room. I thought the doctor was just another orderly until he introduced himself to me. (For some reason, he reminded me of the bald, sort of arrogant doctor in the old TV show, "ER"...remember him? Weird.) He asked me some questions, too, about my melanoma and looked up my Huntsman scans. Another nurse came in, named Alex--a big Tongan man with a long black ponytail, who was very kind and gentle--and he covered me with a warm blanket and hooked me up to all sorts of wires and monitors. Then he had me turn on my left side and bite down on a sort of mouth guard with a hole in the middle of it, which he taped down to my cheeks. The sedation nurse told me she was giving me two medications in the IV--one, a painkiller to help relax my throat; and the other, a "sleep" med to put me out. She said it might sting, but it didn't--all I felt was a warmth in my veins, and then I closed my eyes and was out.
It seemed barely minutes later when I sort of "woke up" with my eyes still closed. The first thing I did was realize that I was lying on my back now. Then I realized that I didn't have the mouth guard in my mouth any more. I was done! I felt someone take off the blood pressure cuff and that's when I opened my eyes--I don't really remember if someone said my name or not. Alex was at my side and asked if I wanted water or juice or anything. "You might have a bit of a sore throat," he said when he handed me a cup of cool water with a straw, but it wasn't sore at all. It felt perfectly fine. I didn't feel at all sluggish, either, which also surprised me. I looked at my watch and it was 8:25. The procedure had taken about 20 minutes, but it felt like I'd been out mere moments.
I think one of the best parts for me was when Alex handed me some pages all stapled together with the basic "if this happens after your procedure, please call this number" stuff, plus a couple of pages with pictures from the Endoscopy and descriptions of the procedure (in medical jargon), along with "findings" and "recommendations". It was just what I wanted and needed to know. No waiting to see if something had shown up--here it was in my hands. I scanned through it a couple of times, looking for the "all clear" sign, and found a spot that said, "The examined duodenum was normal. No evidence of a duodenal mass was seen." Major relief!! I did find out that I have a "Grade C reflux esophagitis (caused by acid reflux)" and a "hiatal hernia" (which I later found out that 60% of people over the age of 50 have, as well) and a "normal stomach." Well, hooray for that!
The doctor came back in just as I was ready to leave and said that he recommends another Endoscopy to look at the "ampulla". He said his scope at the Redwood Clinic is not as "strong" or "sensitive" as the one at the Huntsman Hospital, and he wants to use that one to make sure all is well with the ampulla. (Yes, there's another one of my new vocab words.) He did say that he would "love to give me his blessing" (to which he made the sign of the cross), but he wanted to be certain all was well by doing another scope. As I've learned in recent weeks and months, one scan or scope leads to another, "just to be certain". And now that I know an Endoscopy is not a worrisome, scary procedure, I am okay with being photographed again on the inside!
Hope you learned something today. I'll be a walking medical journal before too long...
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