On the mend

{image via sunday in bed}

Well, I'm back.  Not with out some turns and twists in the story line though!  Turns out instead of having surgery as planned yesterday, I had an endoscopy.   I'll try my best to keep this short and sweet, but the gist of it is that two weeks ago I took an antibiotic my doctor had prescribed me to take prior to one of the pre-surgical tests I was having done.  The medicine was given to prevent any possible infection from occurring during the test.  But, this sneaky little devil of an antibiotic ended up causing big problems.  The pill dissolved in my esophagus (instead of my stomach) and what do you know, I ended up with esophagitis.   

If you've never heard of it, esophagitis basically means you've burned your esophagus.  And, pardon my french here: it hurts like a bitch.  Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that having ulcers in my esophagus is pretty much the worst pain I've ever experienced.  And worse, I couldn't eat or drink anything.  Not even water.

We made several trips to the ER.  Each time they confirmed that I was severely dehydrated and in pain and gave me IV fluids and pain medicine.  The second time we made the trip I was really scared:  the pain and hunger had worn me down and I was really concerned that I was never going to get better.  "What if I'm like this for another month?" I thought.  I know that seems silly, but when you haven't eaten in six days, you really can't imagine going for 30 more.

Finally, we were referred to a gastroenterologist (it took a bit longer because the entire city of Houston shut down Friday due to an ice storm) who preformed an upper GI endoscopy on me yesterday and gave me medicine to help speed up the healing process (yay!).  Today, I'm not in as much pain and have been able to eat a bit, too.  And I'm no longer picturing myself walking around with IV fluids in a backpack. Even better.

All in all, we've been through the ringer.  Paul (who has been amazing and wonderful) was back in the ER with Dylan on Sunday night.  Our little guy has a bad case of bronchitis.  That's life for ya, right?

We are post-poning the laparoscopy, but thanks so much for all of your sweet thoughts: it meant so much.  For now, I am snuggled up at home with two boys, a dog and three lazy cats.  Feeling glad to be out of the cold and rainy weather and really grateful we are on the mend and will all be healthy again soon.  I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with my little blog.  I've missed it terribly!  Hope to be back really soon.  Until then, big hugs + stay warm!

xo,

steph

p.s. Design*Mom and Oh Happy Day! both moved to France(!).  It's been fun reading about their adventures.  I'm slightly jealous, I shamefully admit!