I know I just posted yesterday...
But I thought I would post again and tell you all what happened at my GI appointment this morning...
I told the doctor I had been having a lot of stomach cramps and my stomach gets upset a lot...he said that is very common...what's going on is that the mass thing-y is actually what my ulcer is doing as it heals...he said he has seen this before just not as bad as I have it and it looks a little weird but as the ulcer heals its swelling a lot and getting inflamed...since the ulcer was right near the end of my stomach the swelling is making it hard for digested food to get out of my stomach...he told me to eat things that don't have a lot of fiber and soft foods that can easily be digested to help with the pain I am having...I will still have to take some benefiber though or I am running to the bathroom constantly with diarrhea cause of my failing kidney so I will just have to deal with that pain...he did lower the dose of my medicine for my stomach though because he figures since I am small a smaller dose would be better for me...I go again to see him in about two weeks...
Before that though I go on Thursday of this week to have a CAT scan...I have to be there at &:15 in the morning...and I thought having to be at the doctors office by 10 today was bad...he wants to do a CAT scan to see if there is anything outside my stomach that might be causing my ulcer to heal weird...he is hoping he doesn't find anything but wants to check just to make sure...but having kidney failure brings up another problem with that as well...usually they hook you up to an IV and feed this solution of stuff into your body and the scan picks that up...with kidney failure though your body can't filter that stuff out and it becomes harmful to you...Kathy even said on the phone today when I was telling her about it if they were doing that route I would have to go in an in center dialysis for three days in a row to get that all off me....instead they are doing a low dose that my body can handle orally...I am glad Dr. Mustafa (or Mufasa as I like to call him) thinks of those things since not every doctor does...
I also talked to Kathy (my dialysis nurse) quite a bit today...I am starting to get stuff to use my fistula even though it isn't quite ready yet...she ordered needles that will come in the mail soon...the needles I will use to poke myself...she also ordered this cream stuff through Snyder's for me...you put it on the fistula about an hour before hand and it numbs up the area making it easier to poke...so that will be nice...since I have been having trouble sleeping she told me to try taking Tylenol PM and see if that helps...a lot of other things haven't so hopefully this helps at least a little...I told her that I got another blister from tape so she said I am probably allergic...no surprise there since my skin has never liked tape that much...it seems that I don't have as band a reaction to paper tape or band aids...so whenever I go in somewhere I need to tell them paper tape and band aids only....another thing we talked about is how my blood has started to clot more in the filter even at 3000 of Heparin (that's the stuff that's making my hair fall out)...so I am going to try giving a few more flushes on saline during treatment to see if that helps...if not then I will have to up the dose of that again...which sucks cause then I will be losing more hair then I am...which is just another reason why I am ready for this fistula to work....Kathy said usually you don't need to use any Heparin with fistulas...I will be glad when I stop losing my hair...
When I told her about my ulcer swelling as it heals she said that makes sense then for why I am still losing so much blood and why it seems like the epo isn't working...she said that when you have swelling in your body your blood makes more white blood cells and doesn't really try to produce a lot of red blood cells...so instead of using the epo for that my body is almost ignoring it in a way thinking I don't need it as it focuses on trying to fix the swelling...and my body does do I good job at making white blood cells...so once that is taken care of my body can get back to trying to make red blood cells again...its got everything it needs right there it is just preoccupied on what's going on in my stomach...it is nice to know that there is actually a reason for my hemoglobin being so weird...that makes me feels good to know the cause...even if I sort of just have to wait it out as my body tries to heal that...
Dr. Mustafa made sure I knew though that it wasn't cancerous or anything like that...just a common abnormality occurring as my ulcer heals...even if the abnormality is super weird in me cause my body can't do anything half way...he did say it looked a little strange because he had never seen one swell that much...he said it would be fine though...they might have to check on it again in a couple of weeks to see what it looks like then and see how it is healing
Even with all of that it has been a great day...despite the rain this morning it's super beautiful now...I got some errands done...been enjoying the weather and I actually feel pretty great...and I bought myself some flowers...so that's always nice...PLUS I found out I have spring break from my online classes this week...I didn't think I got a spring break so that was a nice surprise to see when I logged onto my class page today....
I don't say it enough...thank you for all your prayers and all that you do for our family...sometimes it is surprising to me how many people want to love on us in anyway that they can...something that was especially nice this passed week was that someone made us chicken noodle soup when we were gone in Peoria...that was nice to come home and already have something ready...I know that meant a lot to mom and I thought it was super delish...we have been trying to figure out who did it so we can thank them but so far everyone we have asked has said it wasn't them...so THANK YOU whoever you are....what a great gift of love
I told the doctor I had been having a lot of stomach cramps and my stomach gets upset a lot...he said that is very common...what's going on is that the mass thing-y is actually what my ulcer is doing as it heals...he said he has seen this before just not as bad as I have it and it looks a little weird but as the ulcer heals its swelling a lot and getting inflamed...since the ulcer was right near the end of my stomach the swelling is making it hard for digested food to get out of my stomach...he told me to eat things that don't have a lot of fiber and soft foods that can easily be digested to help with the pain I am having...I will still have to take some benefiber though or I am running to the bathroom constantly with diarrhea cause of my failing kidney so I will just have to deal with that pain...he did lower the dose of my medicine for my stomach though because he figures since I am small a smaller dose would be better for me...I go again to see him in about two weeks...
Before that though I go on Thursday of this week to have a CAT scan...I have to be there at &:15 in the morning...and I thought having to be at the doctors office by 10 today was bad...he wants to do a CAT scan to see if there is anything outside my stomach that might be causing my ulcer to heal weird...he is hoping he doesn't find anything but wants to check just to make sure...but having kidney failure brings up another problem with that as well...usually they hook you up to an IV and feed this solution of stuff into your body and the scan picks that up...with kidney failure though your body can't filter that stuff out and it becomes harmful to you...Kathy even said on the phone today when I was telling her about it if they were doing that route I would have to go in an in center dialysis for three days in a row to get that all off me....instead they are doing a low dose that my body can handle orally...I am glad Dr. Mustafa (or Mufasa as I like to call him) thinks of those things since not every doctor does...
I also talked to Kathy (my dialysis nurse) quite a bit today...I am starting to get stuff to use my fistula even though it isn't quite ready yet...she ordered needles that will come in the mail soon...the needles I will use to poke myself...she also ordered this cream stuff through Snyder's for me...you put it on the fistula about an hour before hand and it numbs up the area making it easier to poke...so that will be nice...since I have been having trouble sleeping she told me to try taking Tylenol PM and see if that helps...a lot of other things haven't so hopefully this helps at least a little...I told her that I got another blister from tape so she said I am probably allergic...no surprise there since my skin has never liked tape that much...it seems that I don't have as band a reaction to paper tape or band aids...so whenever I go in somewhere I need to tell them paper tape and band aids only....another thing we talked about is how my blood has started to clot more in the filter even at 3000 of Heparin (that's the stuff that's making my hair fall out)...so I am going to try giving a few more flushes on saline during treatment to see if that helps...if not then I will have to up the dose of that again...which sucks cause then I will be losing more hair then I am...which is just another reason why I am ready for this fistula to work....Kathy said usually you don't need to use any Heparin with fistulas...I will be glad when I stop losing my hair...
When I told her about my ulcer swelling as it heals she said that makes sense then for why I am still losing so much blood and why it seems like the epo isn't working...she said that when you have swelling in your body your blood makes more white blood cells and doesn't really try to produce a lot of red blood cells...so instead of using the epo for that my body is almost ignoring it in a way thinking I don't need it as it focuses on trying to fix the swelling...and my body does do I good job at making white blood cells...so once that is taken care of my body can get back to trying to make red blood cells again...its got everything it needs right there it is just preoccupied on what's going on in my stomach...it is nice to know that there is actually a reason for my hemoglobin being so weird...that makes me feels good to know the cause...even if I sort of just have to wait it out as my body tries to heal that...
Dr. Mustafa made sure I knew though that it wasn't cancerous or anything like that...just a common abnormality occurring as my ulcer heals...even if the abnormality is super weird in me cause my body can't do anything half way...he did say it looked a little strange because he had never seen one swell that much...he said it would be fine though...they might have to check on it again in a couple of weeks to see what it looks like then and see how it is healing
Even with all of that it has been a great day...despite the rain this morning it's super beautiful now...I got some errands done...been enjoying the weather and I actually feel pretty great...and I bought myself some flowers...so that's always nice...PLUS I found out I have spring break from my online classes this week...I didn't think I got a spring break so that was a nice surprise to see when I logged onto my class page today....
I don't say it enough...thank you for all your prayers and all that you do for our family...sometimes it is surprising to me how many people want to love on us in anyway that they can...something that was especially nice this passed week was that someone made us chicken noodle soup when we were gone in Peoria...that was nice to come home and already have something ready...I know that meant a lot to mom and I thought it was super delish...we have been trying to figure out who did it so we can thank them but so far everyone we have asked has said it wasn't them...so THANK YOU whoever you are....what a great gift of love
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