Tummy Troubles

So I'm basically going to now re-paste from an email that I sent to my momzer and a few other close types today. I wasn't gonna, but then I thought "Hey! The whole world is completely DYING to know the intimate details of my digestive system!" SO! Here you go...

Since my gall bladder was removed in 1997, I've had IBS. (Hooray!) The last few years, I've also had intermittent "attacks" that feel like what I felt with gallstones. Not pleasant, to say the least, but rare enough I didn't worry over much about it.

When one of these attacks started Friday-ish, I chewed a few tums and waited for it to pass as it usually does. Eventually it did, only to come back with a vengeance a few hours later. Lather, rinse, repeat until yesterday.

Yesterday. Immediately following yet another root canal (I think this makes #7, with another 4 or 5 to go before all is said and done, but I digress...) another attack started,. Even though I had an appointment with my general practice for the next day, the pain was intense enough that I hauled myself over to the ER at the nearby hospital. They ran several tests, checked liver and pancreatic enzymes, and everything looked pretty good. Since I was slated for a Celiac Disease panel to be run at my doc's office, they decided to go ahead and run it off of the rivers of blood they had already sucked from my poor little body.

The results from the Celiac Disease test will be back in about a week.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I headed towards home with prescriptions for Prevacid and an anti-spasmodic.

Today, T and I discussed it and decided that - since our insurance does not require a referral for a specialist - we would cut out the middle man and attempt to get me into a specialist ASAP. Found a Gastroenterologist covered by our insurance and called them up. They were booking 2 months out (!!!) but had happened to have a rare cancellation for this afternoon, and could I come in at 3:30? ( You bet yer sweet bippies I could! )

SO! After taking a good history (first time a doc has actually paid attention and asked good probing questions about family history and my possibly inter-related symptoms) my new favorite Doctor (one of the top 10 docs in the DC area according to Washingtonian Magazine, as evidenced by the framed cover on the wall of her office) said she wants a CT scan ASAP.
I'll be going for an abdominal/pelvic CT scan on Thursday morning, which could rule out several things right off the bat. (ovarian cysts, obvious masses, and other stuff I can't remember because the boys were with me and generally screaming as loud as they could.)

So after the CT and once the results from the CD serology tests are back, I will find out if I need to have an endoscopy and biopsy done, and possibly a colonoscopy. (FUN for kids of all ages!)

For the present, the Gastro Doc says she definitely wants me to take the daily Prevacid, and use the anti-spasm drug for my "intes-tynes" (must be said with a slow, west-virginia drawl) as needed.

If anyone wants to know more about celiac disease, http://www.wikipedia.org has some good info.

I guess that's really it for now. Could be nothing. Could be something. Either way? It'll be taken care of, and the tummy aches should soon be a distant memory. If the CD test is positive, you will know it because you will distinctly hear the reality-shattering scream of pain and loss that accompanies the realization that I actually have to give up bread. Because bread? Is life. And Bread and Cheese and Red Wine and Chocolate? They're like a family... the staples of edible joy that make life worth living. And I would really really miss bread.

But hey. That's all the future, and for the moment it's neither here nor there.

Between the boys being sick, family tragedies, and my own tummy troubles... well, I've been incommunicado of late, to say the least. I'm not gone for good, just out in the Big Blue Room experiencing the life I had previously been watching through the window.

I promise to report back when next I come in from the cold. Because I just KNOW you're hanging on every word as soon as the phrase "spastic colon" comes up. You're masochistic like that... and you should probably seek help immediately.