Well, Michele’s parents departed last night, sometime after 3am. I unfortunately slept right through their departure, but I had managed to make some goodbyes prior to going to bed at least. I know Michele is gonna be sad for a while, she never likes the re-separation from her parents. They really helped us out with a lot of stuff while they were here, and were really understanding of my somewhat reclusive nature due to being in pain. I don’t like ‘being on display’ when I’m hurting… I prefer to suffer in solitary.

But they got Michele to the grocery several times to stock our cabinets and new fridge. They helped her get the various tools we were lacking to finish curtain rod installation, and to do some caulking at places it was needed. They got her to the doctor (finally!) to get some decent meds for her sinus problems. The also got her driver’s license stuff done for NC (she passed the written test, yay!), and of course they gave me a lift numerous times to work and the doctor while my truck was being fixed. Most ‘common’ wisdom has the husband at odds with the in-laws, especially the mother-in-law, but thankfully that’s not the case here. I’m very thankful for all the help they gave us, and most especially for making Michele very happy with their visit. Here’s to a safe drive back to them today!

Last night I also took a nap for various reasons, and slept thru the first part of my weekly Dynamis run in FFXI. I showed up late, and it was a good run, but that was mostly incidental; I got to talk to a couple friends yesterday as well that I’d neglected somewhat recently. I don’t mean to ignore people and miss out on doing stuff, I just find it hard to even remember to get a message to them if I’m in pain and not going to be around. I’m hopeful however that the pain problem is going to be greatly reduced in the coming week, especially since I want to get to the beach with my family next weekend.

As per usual, click ‘Read More’ down there if you want to hear about my medical woes some more.

I went in for what they called a ‘Small Bowel Study’ at Caromont Imaging Services yesterday morning. Got a 7:45am appointment, so I figured I wouldn’t miss much work (I’ve missed quite a bit lately with all the doctor visits, not to mention getting my new NC license last Friday right before my old MD one expired!). What a silly expectation on my part! My body is bound and determined to make things difficult for me it seems. The procedure I was after is variable in time, unique to each person; the reason being, is you have to drink that lovely, chalky, horrid-tasting barium sulfate solution, and then give it time to work its way thru your intestines so they’ll glow on the x-ray.

Given the huge inflamed area we saw on my colonoscopy near the beginning of my large intestine, and the intense and acute pain that occurs when I try and eat much of anything, I should’ve predicted there would be trouble. They would take a quick snapshot x-ray every 10-15min to see the progression of the barium, and hopefully within an hour it would be saturated and we could get on with things. No way. The 15min checks soon started being 30minutes, and then an hour. I had not eaten anything but an Ensure drink the previous day in the afternoon…but it took 6 hours for the solution to complete its journey. I finished an entire book and several magazines while sitting in a paper hospital gown on the x-ray table. In the end, they had me eat some crackers and drink some soda in hopes of moving things along, which, while successful, would have other repercussions I’ll discuss shortly.

So, after almost 7 hours, they finally put me in the real machine and sent the doc in. He put on his heavy duty leaded apron, and told me to relax my stomach and abdominal muscles. He then picked up his poking stick. It was just a wooden stick with a balloon on the end. Which seemed more than a bit odd. But wow, was it effective! The machine (I don’t know its name) was fired up, and on a screen above my head, I could see inside of me. It was somewhat surreal, to be honest. Most stuff was somewhat washed out, but the barium sulfate made my intestines white and glowy. And then he started in with the poking stick. My friends, you would not believe how much our intestines move around with just the slightest prodding from the outside. Simply would not believe it. I didn’t, and I was watching it happen. To me.

So after some prodding and rearranging, he had me lean slightly to either side several times, and did more rearranging. Eventually he found angles that he liked, and took some pictures of it all, and finally we were done. He then took a moment to point some stuff out to me on the screen, and explain what was going on. He agreed with the diagnosis of Crohn’s, and pointed out why. First, there was a focus on my small intestines, a normal section. Looked sorta like sausage links, or maybe a balloon animal snake all curled up. Then, the inflamed sections…they looked more the side of a ribeye steak, 2-3x the normal width of the normal sections. And the most worrying of all, to the radiologist doctor, the constricted sections. Those seemed almost pencil thin by comparison, and hardly able to pass anything through.

He stated that all those were indicative of active Crohn’s, and that I definitely needed to see my specialist doctor once again to discuss the results (Friday the 27th is that day, also gives the steroids time to take more effect and reduce the inflammation theoretically). He recommended as much of a liquid-only diet as I could manage, and what solids I did eat needed to be chewed a lot. He emphasized the massive amount of chewing to be done at least a half a dozen times, or even suggested pureeing my food instead where it could be managed. Tuesday night I had already resolved to try and live off of Ensure and apple juice for the remainder of the week and maybe longer, in hopes that if I stopped having food-bits put pressure on the inflamed part of my intestines that they might heal faster. So it was nice to have it confirmed by the doctor, even if it means I’m decidedly unhappy with my food options now.

I’ve always been a meat and potatoes type. I like my meat, I like my fillers (potatoes, noodles, etc). I don’t like liquid outside of my drinking glass. My chicken noodle soup is made in such a way that its practically a casserole at the end, very little free liquid is left in it. My gravy preferences are thick and hearty, and usually mixed with potatoes or such. I just don’t do liquid food very much. And now I have no choice but to. The Ensures aren’t bad, but the richness of them is going to get old (I’m a bland food person, what can I say?). Chicken broth is tolerable for about 1.5 meals, then I get sick of it for a while. And…that’s about it for stuff I could reasonably think of to eat. Luckily, Michele had a few more ideas.

In the last grocery run with her mom, she got me a ton of applesauce, puddings, jello, and gravies. The gravy is the most interesting part to me. You see, the crackers I had at the doctor set off my abdominal pain later in the afternoon. I took my Hydrocone and all, but as per usual it couldn’t help with the majority of the pain. So I get home from work, hunched over from the pain, and crawl into bed. I managed to sleep for just over an hour, and on waking felt a lot better; still hurt, but not nearly so profound. And I felt…high. The combination of pain meds, hunger, and a short nap had a somewhat narcotic effect on me. So, feeling whimsical, I asked Meabh for something warm to eat. Her idea: SoS! Commonly known to many as Sh*t on a Shingle, it typically involves some form of meat and gravy over a piece of bread. She had chicken meat and gravy, and low-fiber bread. And she pureed it. The biggest lump in there was only about .3cm in size. And it was so good. I would never have thought of it, but my loving wife looks after me far more than I deserve. If she can come up with a few more meals like that, things won’t be so bad after all I think. The warm meal did me a lot of good I think (I was in continued pain all evening, and its still lingering this morning a bit, but the key point is the food didn’t make it any worse).