Me and Katie!

Katie and I have something in common (yes she is that short). For the past few weeks (10 to be exact) I have had some gastrointestinal issues which have caused me to loose about 10lbs. After going to my general practice doctor several times and not finding a remedy it was time for me to go see a gastroenterologist. After our initial meeting he told me that I had to have a colonoscopy so he could see what was going on "in there."

Not expecting to do this until I was 50 I was a little unnerved (I am not a good patient), but with Katie as my guide and Allison and my encourager I set about "preparing" myself for the procedure the next morning. I was supposed to drink two liters of this solution in 80 minutes, it took me four hours and I had to spike the solution with Gatorade to get the last three glasses down.

The next morning I went to the office to take a peak at what's going on. They gave me an injection of demerol and valium to help me relax...it worked, and made me kind of chatty. Here's the scene, I am laying on this table, looking back over my shoulder at the TV monitor while the doctor is maneuvering the endoscope through my innards and I am saying things like:

"So why did you decide to become a gastroenterologist? I heard the hours are good."
"WWWooooowwww this is just like the Discovery Channel except it's me."
"I think that's the left-over Gatorade that I drank last night."
"You're pretty good at this, it doesn't even hurt."
"Got it...nice." (while the biopsies were being taken)

The initial diagnosis was minor case of Crohn's Disease (on a severity scale of 1-10 I was expected to be between a 2 or a 3). The test results that I got back today were somewhat inconclusive and my blood test came back with slight indicators for Celiac Disease. So my doctor wants me to come back for an Upper Endoscopy so he can be completely sure I don't have Celiac. He is pretty sure it's still Crohn's since the medicine I have been taking (Asacol) has seemed to be helping my issues.

So next week I have another date with an endoscope and some more sedatives. Although this time I think it's going to be really hard for me to ask as many questions! Oddly enough Katie had the same procedure done this morning on The Today Show except she got to swallow a pill and I think I get to do it the old fasion way.