Hi friends! I am alive! :) Thank you, Thank you for all the sweet texts, phone calls, messages…all of it. I got every one of them and loved all of them. It was a crazy day, but I know a few of you like the medical details. I am still piecing together things I heard while still coming out of sedation and what my mom has told me. There was bittersweet information we gained yesterday, but first and foremost several praises.
1- I am certain my angel (Kara!!) was with me in the room. When I got back, I only mentioned under my breath that I might be an aspiration risk. They all stopped everything they were doing and brought in my doctor. We discussed for a few minutes that I had food all the way to my esophagus. Then, they noticed I was sitting up (laying flat is brutal for me). When the anesthesiologist asked if I had back pain, I said no that it was uncomfortable because I might vomit. He said….”Intubate!” After the procedure they said more than a few times how grateful they were that I warned them. By being intubated, it protected my lungs from aspirating that food. I did throw up while sedated and it would have been a disaster with so many more complications had I not been intubated and thrown up. Praise!
2-Once in, they spent the majority of the 3 hours cleaning out my tummy. They removed 1.2 liters of food and more when they extubated me. And I hadn’t eaten in a day! They did determine that my strictures are not the issue as we thought. Which, in my mind, is SO wonderful to know that its possible that it is NOT my Crohns that is acting up. HUGE! to know/hope that my Crohns is not progressing. PRAISE!
3-The issue, they think, is an emptying issue that is secondary to my surgeries 15 years ago. They aren’t exactly sure, thus my going BACK in for another procedure on Wednesday. It is possible that after stomach surgery (even numbers of years later) that the stomach will just stop pushing the food thru. In my previous surgeries, they cut my Vagus Nerve intentionally because it is responsible for secreting acid. BUT…it is also responsible for peristalsis….or pushing food thru the stomach. Doctor friends….you probably know those terms better than me!
Waiting on test results, biopsies, lab results.
John and I are both so humbled, grateful, and overwhelmed with the love of our friends. We are tired…very tired of fighting for health and normalcy. We know that it seems endless and feel like we are wearing our precious friends out with our prayers and struggles. It takes having absolutely nothing left in our human strength to know the power of our God, to know the power of prayer and to know the incredible God-given beauty of true friendships. The kind of friends who love you thru the difficult times and amazingly, just keep loving you when the struggles don’t stop. We love each of you so much and appreciate every. single. word, prayer, note, and thought. To be prayed for and to FEEL that prayer, to FEEL the Holy Spirit take over….that is a feeling I wish everyone can experience and a feeling I can’t possibly put into words. It has been a struggle for me, but I have not experienced any pain as great as the POWER of fullness, joy, peace…(i truly can’t describe what I feel) when I know prayers are coming to me in a specific moment. We have learned and grown so much thru this “nightmare” in our marriage and in our faith. God is good. ALL the time! He turns lemons into lemonade!
John, who many of you know worries at an OCD level of worry, was in tears yesterday on our way to the hospital. He said, “I don’t want people to have to help us. I just want to be able to help other people the way everyone is helping us.” We are eternally grateful and love each of you so so so much.
xoxo
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