What's an Endoscopy Like?

I realize that the title of this post is a little "textbook" but it's the exact phrase that I googled last Thursday night, and I didn't find many helpful answers.  So, if you've come here by way of that search term . . . you're welcome.

I've been having difficulty swallowing for . . . oh, about a year now. It's become progressively worse, so last fall, my doctor scheduled an upper GI endoscopy.  She assumed it was a narrowing of the esophagus, and that it just need dilation. She talked as if it was no big deal, but from that moment forward, I was dreading endoscopy day.

It was originally scheduled for October, but everyone in my family was throwing up the day before my appointment, so I rescheduled for February. I was supposed to go in last Thursday, but we got all the snow, so they bumped me to Friday.

Let me just preface the rest of this by saying that it was a really easy, painless procedure. I had these visions of gagging on a camera being shoved down my throat while two nurses and my husband struggled to hold me still. I probably imagined it that way because it's what happens every time I take one of my kids to get a shot. Really, though? It was so simple.

After I checked in, they took me back and I had to disrobe and gown up. They put sticky heart monitors on me and started an IV (Kudos to that nurse. I didn't even realize he'd started it when I saw him taping it down. The last IV I'd had was when I was in labor with Hattie and it took them multiple attempts before they eventually contacted someone from the vascular department.).  After checking my vitals and going over the typical risks and permission forms, they told me they'd be back to get me soon.

About 10 minutes later, they wheeled me back into a room with lots of screens and machines. The tech and the nurse showed me the equipment (which I was already very familiar with, thanks to my googling the night before) and then began to prep me as we waited for the doctor. They took my vitals again, put an oxygen cannula in my hose and sprayed a NASTY tasting spray at the back of my throat to numb my gag reflex.

They had me roll onto my left side and propped me up that way. They started a drug into my IV, and the rest was kind of a blur. I have a faint memory of kind of gagging and I remember the doctor saying "biopsy" and that's it. The next thing I knew, they were moving me to my back and the doctor said, "That's it!" As they were wheeling me to recovery, I remember thinking, "Wow, I thought I'd go to sleep, but I was awake for the whole thing." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't remember much at all. When I tried to remember what happened, it felt like trying to recall a dream.

When they brought Kyle back to see me, all I could fixate on was that I'd heard the doctor say "biopsy." I wasn't 100% sure if that memory could be trusted. They eventually brought in a report and went over it with both of us. They found no narrowing of my esophagus, but took 6 biopsies of suspicious looking areas in my esophagus and stomach. It could be a week or two before we get results, but the phrase "eosinophilic esophagitis" was thrown out there . . . which is a very specific name for something rather broad and nonspecific.

So, I'm waiting. March is so busy, that I don't have a lot of time to stress about it. I have two fears: 1) That they'll come back and tell me that I have something horrible and life altering or 2) THey'll say, "We don't really know what's wrong. You'll just have to deal forever with having difficulty swallowing."

But that's not really the point. The point of this post is this: upper GI endoscipies? Not that bad.

Things I googled, Month 3

Infant hearing loss

Safe plastic baby bottles

can i regain milk supply at 8 weeks

cyberchondria

clamby glass bottles

paying hospital bills

post partum depression

rubbermaid

chuggables

safe plastic baby bottles

sleep grins

amish parenting

ibuprofen while breastfeeding

acetaminophen while breastfeeding

infant constipation

infant allergies

bisphenol-A free baby bottles

why do babies blink less

baby noises

Cyberchondria

Jack had his two month check-up today. Well the two-month check-up to make up for the one that we missed. He weighed in at 15 lbs, 1 oz. That's exactly one pound more than a week ago. He's definitely off his growth curve . . . he's in the 99th percentile. The nurse said he looks like a 6 month old. At this rate, he'll weigh 4000 lbs by the time he's 10.

I thought he had been doing really well with head control and sitting up, but I guess he's a little behind. Who has time for tummy time with 134 campers to look after? I guess he's supposed to be getting an hour a day. I thought he was supposed to be getting 15 minutes. Whoops. So, in his lifetime, he's never had a single day of enough tummy time. I'm hoping that next week we can start to become regular about these things. What I'm trying to say is that I'm hoping that beginning next week, we'll become better parents.

It's amazing how much faster I can type when I don't have a baby in one hand!

I was a little worried (and still kind of am) about Jack's hearing. Last night I was burning a candle and the wax caught on fire and set off the smoke detectors. When one goes off, they all do, so I ran down to his room to get him because I was sure the noise would scare him (after putting out the fire, that is). I had just put him down about 2 mintues earlier and he was awake, so I was sure he would have been wakened by the screeching alarms. But he was laying there, sucking on his pacifier with his eyes closed.

So, I did what any responsible parent would do . . . I googled "infant hearing loss" and read about all kinds of worse case scenarios for about an hour. However, the nurse didn't seem to think there was anything wrong, but you know I'm going to be making loud noises for the next few days to see if he reacts.

Speaking of googling things, my sister saw a report on the Today Show about something called "cyberchondria" and said it made her think of me. Matt Lauer defines it as "people turning to the internet for answers instead of turning to their doctors." If you'll remember the internet ban of 2006 instituted by my husband in our household during the first trimester of my pregnancy, you'll know that I could be one of those people. In fact, the first thing I did after I got of the phone with my sister was google "cyberchondria." You know what? Doctors aren't as available (not to mention as cheap) as the internet.

I do a lot of research on things. I like to consider myself well-informed. I hate it when people say, "You're so lucky to have such an easy baby." I know that there is some element of luck that comes from a combination of your circumstances and your baby's temperment but I really do think that all of the research and reading I did about taking care of an infant had at least a little to do with it. I feel like I know what I'm doing a lot more than I would if I hadn't read much at all. Maybe I overdid it at times, and I know that nothing beats experience and common sense, but I really feel like I do better than I would have without it.

Speaking of being well-informed . . . I had read that there was some concern over plastic baby bottles and the chemicals in them leaching out into the breastmilk or formula that was being fed to babies. I had read somewhere (though I can't remember where) that this issue was resolved and there was no danger. I was misinformed. Lissa called tonight to let me know that she heard a report about the danger of plastic bottles, including the avent ones that I use. It's interesting that the cheaper plastic bottles are actually the safest. Needless to say, I'm shopping around for glass bottles. Too bad I just bought three new Avent ones.