Thursday, October 15, 2009

Gastro.....what now????

Hello there blog-luvahs!!!

I made it through both appointments yesterday unscathed.
Another cavity-free visit!!
Yippee!!!!

What I neglected to admit yesterday was that I also had a doctor’s appointment early this morning.
Since last Friday night, I’ve been a victim of what I’ll simply call ‘Upper GI Discomfort’.

I initially thought it was due to my acting like a 21 year old over the weekend at the softball tournament, but when I wasn’t feeling any better by Monday morning I decided to pay a visit to my local nurse practitioner. My PCP wasn’t available until November 6th and I was NOT waiting that long.
I wasn’t displaying any severe symptoms; just mostly uncomfortable ‘stuff’ like heartburn, not really being hungry, and the feeling like something was in the back of my throat at all times. Like I said, nothing painful, I just wasn’t feeling ‘right’ and was pretty uncomfortable, especially when eating.

I went in this morning and met with my super-nice nurse practitioner. I went into great detail about my ‘issues’ and we had a nice chat.
She gave me a prescription for Prilosec in order to (hopefully) make me feel better, they gave me an EKG (which came back totally fine) and sent me off to schedule an appointment to have a Gastroscopy done.
Apparently, that’s when they sedate you and jam a scope down your throat so they can see what’s going on inside your throat and tummy.
Are you jealous yet???

I scheduled that little procedure for next Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes. I can’t drive home afterwards, but I’m hoping that they’ll let me walk around the corner to my sister’s house and crash there until I’m ‘over it’. The hospital’s parking lot backs right up to the fence in her back yard…it’s that close.
Of course, if they can’t ‘allow’ that, I’ll just take a cab around the corner and piss off some cabbie.
She also mentioned that my blood pressure was a little high and I should have my sister (PJ, the nurse) check it at some point within the week, just to be sure it’s nothing to worry about. It was 130/100, but she said that could have been due to the fact that the only thing I had this morning was coffee, but either way, she didn’t seem all that concerned about it.

Not only am I looking more and more like my Dad every day, but I'm CLEARLY adopting all of his health issues as well. Awesome.

A couple of other ‘fun’ things that happened while I was there this morning:

After stepping on the scale and being faced with my actual weight (I haven't weighed myself in God only knows how long) I said “Oh. Wow.” and she replied “I’m surprised….you certainly don’t look it.”

Nice

Also – it has become very clear to me that EKGs are NOT designed for those of us with hairy chests. OUCH.




I’ll keep you posted with any updates…….Happy Thursday!!!!

PS – I was a little bit horrified admitting to her that I drank a lot on Friday night, which was when all this really started.

Nurse Practitioner: So, on Friday – how many beers did you have?
Me: Ummmm, I’m not sure, but it was more than 2.
Nurse Practitioner: So, like three?
Me: Well….I wasn’t driving and we were staying at the hotel, so it was probably closer to 4…….or 5.
Nurse Practitioner: Oh….so you had about 5 beers.
Me: Ummm…...yeah.

6 comments:

Larry Ohio said...

Awww, sorry to hear of your illness. Make sure you ask them to check for the presence of h. pylori bacteria. It might be causing or contributing to your discomfort, and it's relatively easy to kill if you have it. If you are not familiar, check this out -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._pylori

Amy said...

Haha...."Um. 5. Yeahhhhhh....5!"

My daughter had the scope down her throat. She said it wasn't fun but it didn't suck really bad, either. They never found anything, though. and so goes her drama.

RG said...

Don't you just LOVE how after they shave your chest, they use something akin to a lava stone to clean the area for better adhesion of the electrode pads! Faaaaaaaabulous.

Upper GI scoping isn't so bad. I had it done and it takes more time to prep you than it does to do the procedure. The drugs are good though - you're going to nap very well.

Now, the colonoscopy I had on the other hand.....

And 5 beers was on the low side wasn't it? LOL

Jim said...

What about the trees?

Hope your 'Upper GI' isssues get resolved.

cb said...

Yeah. Five. Riiiiiiiiiight.

Uncle Richard said...

5....5... Peaches, you had more than 5 the night Neil sang the entire score to "Hello, Dolly!" on Graham Street and you had to stay until 5:00AM so that you could drive legally!