I'm Still Here

 Hi Blogger Buddies.

Well, where do I begin to update you?

Is there anything worse than an old woman going on about her ailments?

I will try to make this as brief as possible.

I have been to many doctors. I need to see one more that my GI surgeon is sending me to.

Hopefully, this will be negative and I won't need that doctor in with the GI doctor during surgery. 

I have a colonoscopy on Wednesday. So as you all know I can't leave the house on Tuesday.  The way they do the prep for a colonoscopy here is how they did it in the 80s. It's a bit backward and outdated but with the same results. It's just miserable for me.  

I then see the GI surgeon again on Thursday to be sure that nothing surprised them from the colonoscopy. They did a CT scan with contrast when I was in the ER and they are using that as what needs to be done and will compare it with the Colonoscopy.

Have you ever had a CT Scan with contrast before? The contrast makes you feel like you are peeing yourself while lying on this table. You get all warm and it feels exactly like you just peed yourself.  But nope, thankfully, you didn't. It is such a weird feeling, to say the least. The first time I had this they told me it was coming but then all of a sudden you get that warm feeling and I knew they told me I wasn't peeing but it freaked me out. This was the 2nd time so I knew what was coming but it is still weirdly unsettling.

If everything else is negative then I will be having surgery to remove a small portion of my colon. It is done laparoscopically. So you'd think I'd go home that day.  BUT they keep you in the hospital for 3 -4 days until you poop. Lovely. They want to be sure everything is running as supposed to.

I will give you more info later but that gives you an overview.

I am not so nauseous today and the room isn't spinning today so I could sit here and write. Remember when you were young and stupid and got so drunk as you lay on your bed the room would be spinning? 

That awful feeling is how I've felt for the last 3 weeks along with nausea or vomiting or lucky me both. 

I arrived in North Carolina 1.5 yrs ago only taking one pill a day. 

A thyroid pill.

I have never had indigestion in my life. Now it's constant.(should go away after this whole colon thing)

I had low blood pressure my whole life. Now it's high, they said that was from the chemo/steroids.

I moved here, and Betty grew to 3x its size. 

I had chemo/steroid hell for 6.5 months. 

Now, this. I have not been well since I crossed the state line!  

I don't think NC likes me much.

They believe this was brought on by the high dosage of steroids more than anything. The tummy pain I was having we all thought was from the oral chemo. The side effect is even stated in the literature as stomach pain. 

But it wasn't that. 

I had a fistula from my colon to the back of my vagina. I also had a flare-up of my diverticulitis. Because this is close to my bladder the infection traveled there and gave me a very bad UTI. Let's just pile it on Peg shall we?

My body couldn't fight the infections because I was immune compromised (as we hoped for my eye) so my body was not fighting the infections and I was just getting sicker by the day. 

Now fighting 3 infections and all those drugs were also giving me side effects but I couldn't stop them I had to get rid of it all. 

So to recap - steroids and chemo will #*!* you up!

Rick has a sister in California who just had the same operation just after Christmas. She only had the colon piece, not diverticulitis. She had all these symptoms and said there were days when she thought she was dying. Yep, been there. But she is doing great now. She is having no issues at all and all the pain and suffering for her is over. Fingers crossed it will be for me too. They take that piece out, sew it back together, and off you go. 

I did not know I had 6ft of colon, so my GI doc says.

Yes, I am leaving a lot out. There is so much more but I don't wish to bore the hell out of you. I just wanted to give you a quick overview.

I am alive and hanging in there. Tonight, doing fairly well, hell, I'm upright!

I have a wonderful nurse named Rick. 

He can be a bit overbearing but he means well. 

That man is so good to me! 

This week is jam packed with medical fun so I don't know if I will get to blog this week. If I am not hanging over a commode or the room isn't spinning then I will try to drop a line. 

Thank you for all the nice comments.

I hope you all are doing well.

Spring has sprung here and I hope it has in your neck of the woods.

🧡