My Visit to the Hospital

Well, I sensed that I needed to go back to my doctor two weeks ago, and apparently I was way overdue.

On February 26, Sunday morning at 9:15 a.m. I woke up and realized that I had to throw up--or rather regurgitate--and when I did I threw up blood.

I didn't even believe it. It tasted like blood and it looked real dark, so immediately I got upset and asked my mom to come look at it. She confirmed that it was blood. We called my doctor's office and I was told to go to the nearest emergency room. I was visiting my mother who lives in Metairie, Louisiana--a suburb of New Orleans--and it was the weekend before Mardi Gras day. Going to an ER around there was pointless because they would be way too crowded; not to mention I live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and that's where my doctor is located.

So we drove to Hattiesburg which is about 2 hours away.

We finally got to the ER and after about four and a half hours they decided they needed to hospitalize me overnight. They scheduled an EGD for me in the morning which is when they send a scope with a camera on it down your esophagus.

On Monday morning they did the procedure and found lots of blood and debris--old food that was collecting in my esophagus. They decided that I needed to stay in the hospital one more night. They were going to go in the next morning and inject Botox into my esophagus to hopefully relax the muscle.

Tuesday morning's procedure went well and I was able to go home that night with strict instructions to be on a full liquid diet until one week later when I have my follow-up appointment.

I just got back from my appointment and I'm finally able to eat normal foods again. Thank goodness because being on an all liquid diet is terrible! Basically, the next move my doctor wants to take is dilation. I've already had the Heller Myotomy back in July of 2004 and it is a possibility that I may need to have it again. The worse case senario would be having to have part of my esophagus removed and they would bring up my stomach or maybe a piece of colon. I don't know. I just hope the Botox worked. So far, it feels like it did.