My God. I feel like a door that slammed in my face just came open. When I walked out of the doctor’s office this morning, I was almost weeping with relief.
Here’s what: After the surgery to relieve the bowel obstruction that I enjoyed at the end of June (the sixth major surgery in 12 months), it took a little time to recover. After about two months, the Mayo called me back for a “follow-up.”
Instead of seeing a doc for this appointment, I met with the surgeon’s P.A. And by the time I walked away from that woman, I was utterly terrorized. She said…
• The adhesions will (not “may”) return.
• They could return within a few weeks or months, or it could be as long as ten years.
• When that happens I’ll have to go through the whole horrible thing again: another five days in the hospital in agony with tubes stuck down my throat; another abdominal surgery; another God knows how long to recover.
• There’s a limit to the number of times they can do this surgery. After two or three procedures, they can’t do them again.
• And at that point, you’re pretty much done for.
• I must eat an extremely low-fiber diet. That means…
….No fresh veggies, properly cooked or raw
….No fruit unless it’s stewed or canned
….No salad greens
• All meats must be stewed or boiled: no grilled meat, no broiled meat, no fried meat, no roast meat
• No whole-grain cereals
….No oatmeal
….No whole-grain breads
….No polenta
….No brown rice
….No barley…and on and on and on
Holy shit. Basically she was saying that my life as I knew it was ended, and that 70 years worth of vibrant health was effectively ruined.
Needless to say, I’ve been in quite the blue funk these past few weeks.
I actively dislike soggy, mushy food. Some of it, I’ll eat, but it’s not something I would seek out, or that I look forward to eating. So, since I spoke with this woman, I haven’t had much to eat. Certainly not much I enjoy.
But I’ve gained ten pounds!
Part of the reason for the weight gain is that in the absence of anything appetizing to eat, I’ve been scarfing down ice cream. I don’t much like ice cream, but as a practical matter it seemed like about the only thing worth eating that didn’t threaten to send me back to the O.R. Part of the reason has been that I’ve been too depressed to crawl out from behind the computer. And part of the reason is that things like pasta and boiled potatoes tend to pack the pounds on. I can gain two or three pounds just from eating a hearty helping of spaghetti.
I’ve only gained ten pounds because I’m hardly eating anything.
Saved a lot on groceries, though. 😉
Then the GERD symptoms came back. I’ve had a lump in my throat for weeks and weeks.
At first I thought it was probably trauma from all the tubes they stuck down my throat — they had me intubated for three or four days, and the surgery (during which they stuff God knows what down your throat) took three hours. Thought it would go away over time.
But it didn’t. Instead more GERD symptoms joined it: burping and queasy and heartburn that wakes you up at three in the morning.
So I thought…I need to see a gastroenterologist, NOT a surgeon. And thanks to Young Dr. Kildare, I happen to know one.
The last time I was enjoying GERD manifestations, he wanted me to go to a specialist. Well, I don’t think much of the specialists who reside at John C. Lincoln, so I tracked this lady down through Angie’s List and managed to wriggle in to see her.
At the time she told me I did not need to have anything stuck down my throat to diagnose what was obviously gastric reflux and that if I kept taking the omeprazole YDK had prescribed, in a few weeks it would settle down. If not, they had other strategies.
She was right. Within a couple of weeks, it went away.
That was in 2012. It didn’t bother me again until after the most recent Adventure in Medical Science: three years later.
So I asked her if the GERD-like symptoms could have been kicked up by the surgery.
Yep.
And was the throat lump thing from acid reflux or from the various gadgetry shoved down my gullet?
Probably both. Keep taking the omeprazole. It’ll get better in a few weeks.
Is it true that this is going to come back and I’ll have to have repeated surgeries but after a couple more there won’t be anything more they can do for me and then I’ll be pretty much a goner?
SNORT! She said that?
Yesh.
No! I have one patient who’s had eight surgeries for adhesions. And it’s not a foregone conclusion that the adhesions will cause another blockage that requires surgery. I have one patient who went FORTY YEARS without a recurrence. She’s 80 years old.
Is it true that henceforth I must eat baby food? I’ve gained ten pounds on this stuff! I have to lay down flat on my back to zip my jeans.
Gaining weight is what causes the GERD to kick up. Come to think of it, tight pants aggravate GERD, too. Go back to your healthy diet and lose the tight jeans until you can fit back into them.
Can I eat salad greens?
Yes. Have a Cobb salad for lunch today.
*** woooHOOOOOO! ***
So it was straight to Whole Foods from her office! Got a package of crunchy tempura sushi and a box of mâche for lunch. Have been afraid to eat sushi because of the seaweed wraps, and tempura and greens were verboten.
Also got a package of CARROTS (not allowed) and a bunch of RED CHARD (on sale on sale on sale!) and a cantaloupe and four juicy-looking peaches and some of those wonderful salty dried black olives (so bad for you!) and another head of garlic and some little green onions and a $4.99 bottle of wine. And some made-in-America chew toys for the dawgs.
Happy Dappy Day.
I figure at two pounds a week, it’ll take five weeks to lose the starch-and-ice-cream-induced avoirdupois.
Fortunately, the weather is cooling off enough that I can walk and bicycle during the day. So, in addition to getting back to the low-starch, low-sugar, low-salt fresh veggie and fruit diet, I figure I can walk an extra mile in the morning after the doggie-walk and then set the alarm to get off my duff in the afternoon and go for a three- or four-mile bike ride.
So with any luck at all, after about a month the fat will be gone and so will the GERD.
