Stricture

Apr 18, 2011

OK, so had my visit with my surgeons office last Thursday (14th). I am now 1 month post-op but over the last couple of weeks have been having more and more trouble eating, but more importantly real trouble drinking. Most days I had been having trouble even getting half my fluids in. Doc suspected a Stricture and said he wanted to schedule an EGD early the following week.... well the next day I called his office about 5'ish after only having consumed about 10 ounces of liquids all day and feeling not only very unwell physically but to my surprise when I spoke to the on-call doctor I was also very emotional. A guy is not supposed to admit such things but when he answered to the phone I started blubbing... can you believe it!!!

He told me to have my wife drive me straight the hospital and he would arrange for me to be admitted without having to go through triage in ER etc... of course we get there and what do they but put me in triage in ER, until they found the orders about 30 mins later and took me to a room.

Of course the pumped me full of fluids (saline, vitamins, iron, potassium etc) and turned out my doc had arranged for the EGD to be done the following morning and no surprises here but they found I had a really tight stricture so they dilated it to 12mm and say I have to go back in 2 weeks and have another EGD to dilate it to 15mm.

Now dont get me wrong this might sound all doom and gloom but i'm very very happy they found this dang stricture because now I can drink again... feels sooooo good and for the first time since surgery, this morning I was able to eat 1 egg (scrambled) with a little shaved ham - until now I have not been able to eat egg and had struggled even with shaved deli meats and most everything else.

I think I might (knock on wood) now be able to move on... my large incision which they cut open again when I had the infection, they tell me I can now allow to close as it seems infection free and I can cope with one more EGD, compared to everything else, thats a walk in the park.

I did put 7lbs on in this last hospital visit but just goes to show how dehydrated I actually was, so i'm not even bothered about that kind of weight gain. I just want to concentrate now on getting a little stronger so I can get back to work - I hate being home this much.

I look forward to my next blog being nothing but positive

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