I don't know how many of you remember me, but I asked for advice at the
message board concerning my recurring bouts of bloating and increased pain.
I won't go into the whole thing again - it takes too long, you can always
look it up at the message board, and as ya'll probably all know, the
constant repetition gets monotonous after a few years.
Anyway, I saw the specialist on 1/27. He examined me, and said I appeared
to have intussusception and rectocele - most likely caused by the adhesions.
He wanted me to have a defacography done.
So, I did - this past Monday. It was a horrible, painful experience. For
anyone who hasn't had this done before, it means you have barium injected
into your rectum, then you sit on a tall toilet with the X-ray table
positioned vertically beside you and a camera of sorts on the other side.
There is a monitor where the dr can see your insides. Then you have to
"squeeze" (like Kegels), relax, and then push as hard as possible -
whichever the dr asks for. He's watching the monitor to see the barium, how
it moves, how the muscles move, etc. He takes several stills of certain
movements he finds significant.
The dr spoke to me immediately afterward (while I was still perched on
top of this "throne"), explaining to me what he saw, and how it should be
vs. how it really was.
One thing that I'll never forget is the way he said, several times,"Well,
you're not normal!" Apparently, there is some intussusception, also some
rectocele, but there are alot of other things going on that are not so
easily explained. He pointed out to me where the rectum was (kind of all
spread out on the anterior side - for some reason!). He also showed me that,
basically, all my guts moved downwards when I pushed - and they aren't
supposed to. He did agree with me that probably alot of it is due to the
adhesions - but he doesn't know what can be causing all the rest. He sort of
muttered to himself a bit, looking at the monitor, mentioning the names of
several conditions ("Yeah, looks like a little blah-blah-blah going on here,
and maybe some blah-blah here..."), but I didn't catch the names, or I would
have been looking them all up as soon as I got home.
There was more to it - but the long and short of it is, it's not as
simple as they thought to correct because he doesn't know what it all is!
And this is the only dr in the entire Orlando area that does this! It's his
speciality. He sent the results back to my dr, and I'm waiting to hear from
him.
I've had to go back to work, on light duty, but to tell the truth, I can
hardly move, and it's such agony! I know my work has to be tired of it all,
but I CAN NOT lose another job to this! Also, I'm way behind on bills, about
to get power cut off, along with everything else (at least the internet is
already paid in advance for a few months - before all this started), and the
bank balance is roughly -$600. Not to mention the $300 worth of missing
money orders sent out for bills. None of them have been cashed, and all four
places say they never got them (and 2 were dropped off in the night
depository! Now does that make ANY sense?!).
So here's another huge worry in addition to hurting so much. I could very
likely be making things worse by continuing to work as much as possible, but
you know, when you need food, you need food.
I'm so sorry for the length of this message, but I had to vent. I do have
to wonder, however, how long a body can go without actually having a
productive bowel movement? Even when I had that test, there was only the
barium that came out. Beyond that, there's only been a very small amount
since 1-14. I'm rather worried about that. And I know there has to be
something there! I look about 6 months pregnant, and I've been eating like a
pig (even with the on again/off again queasiness) because I've been so
depressed and worried. Will I have to explode before anything is done?
Okay, that's definitely long enough. Thanks for listening.