Hospital Stay

Well, I've had an interesting week so far! Monday night I sat down to eat dinner with my two youngest children while Mark and Eric were at basketball practice, and with my first bite of chicken divan, I felt an intense pain and tightening in my chest. I was pretty sure this was related to my esophagus, not heart, because I periodically have episodes where my esophagus squeezes shut when I am eating; this usually happens in my lower throat, and I feel pressure, and am unable to swallow anything at all until the spasm relaxes. This has been going on for years, and I had an endoscopy done about a year ago that didn't show anything of concern. This episode was much more painful than anything I've experienced before and lower, hitting right under the sternum. When these spasms occur and I can't swallow anything, I end up coughing up a lot of mucous/saliva - since it cannot go down, it has to come up! Lovely, huh? Well, I was doing a similar thing Monday, but after about 30 minutes I started coughing up blood, so when Mark got home from practice, we got in the car and took a trip down to the Emergency Room at Wake Med North. The waiting room at the ER was pretty full, but funny thing - when you come in with chest pain and a baggy containing blood that you have spit up, you get seen RIGHT AWAY!! ( sorry if anyone is getting grossed out here )
So I spent 2 days in the hospital, and finally after an endoscopy yesterday, learned that I had an ulcer in the esophagus. They also removed a couple of polyps from my stomach, and have sent those to the lab. I was released last night, and have some meds to take to help the ulcer heal and also to suppress acid production in my stomach, so I have to eat a fairly bland, easy to digest diet for a little while. Good thing Thanksgiving turkey and mashed potatoes isn't spicy!

I'm feeling much, much better. I had pain in my back/chest for 2 days, but it is barely noticeable now. I appreciate your prayers for healing. And I appreciate sleeping through the night without being woken up to have blood drawn for the gazillionth time, and not being hooked up to wires and IVs and sensors that keep beeping because you bend your arm too much..! And nurses are wonderful. :-)


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