Gratitude continues!

January 21, 2009

We sat in Dr. T's office in silence. The air was cool. The room was clean. I thought about how I could close my eyes and imagine I was in a hotel room. "I always worry that they're going to tell me I'm wasting their time or that the problem I'm there for isn't that important," I said quietly to Jeremy. He nodded his head in agreement.

Dr. T entered the room. She smiled and I felt at ease. We talked about what was happening. "Yeah, things are a little better since the dilation on Friday, but I'm still having a hard time," I told her. She asked if I thought I could handle her trying to dilate me today without drugs in the office to see if it worked. Apparently the more I'm able to be dilated, the better chances of my body responding and it staying permanent. In fact, Dr. T said she did some research and there is a 50-60% chance that after a while my body will stay dilated with repeated dilations and then I won't need surgery. If I can tolerate it being done without drugs, then there would be the possibility that we could do the dilation at home. "We" is the operative word here. I won't be able to do it myself. My husband, the angel that he is, asked Dr. T if he could learn how to do it and help me at home. She said that she could teach him if I was comfortable with him helping. I laughed a little nervously. "Yeah, I would be comfortable with him doing it. There isn't much he hasn't been a part of at this point. He helped the nurse put my catheter in when I was in the hospital." She smiled at him. I patted his leg. "Oh sweet baby," I said.

So I told her I was willing to try to have her dilate me in her office without drugs and see what happens. We tried, and it didn't work well. I couldn't handle the pain without meds enough for her to do the full dilation.

Dr. T said our plan is going to be for me to have a standing weekly appointment at the hospital GI lab for her to dilate me. There they will be able to give me the IV medication so they can do the full dilation. She said I did really well last week. She said we'll do this for about six months, unless I find my body is responding and I don't need it any longer. After six months if my body is still not responding then we'll talk about surgery. But with a 50-60% chance that it will work, she didn't want to go right to surgery. Besides, she wanted to wait longer for my body to heal from the last surgery before doing another one any way.

So that's the plan. I left the clinic feeling so much lighter. I was so scared that I was going to go in today and she was going to schedule surgery for me. I still have hope! I will go in for a weekly scoping/dilation for as long as I need to if it means I might not have to live with an ostomy again!! Oh thank you God.