Another uneventful week

So everything seemed to be going so much better this week. I'm feeling better, although still not out of the woods yet. Tuesday the girls and I started doing some cleaning in preparation for Bible Study at our house on Wednesday. Kelly was going to help me some more after dinner. I made sloppy joes, and that's when everything stated falling apart.

Kelly, as many of you know, has a few medical problems. One of which is a ringed esophagus. This means that he has to get his esophagus dilated about once a year (this is done via endoscopy) or else he gets food stuck in his esophagus when he swallows. He hadn't had this happen in a while, but Tuesday night, he got some stuck.

His usual method of relieving this problem is not pretty. He has to gag himself to try to make himself throw up, as this will cause the matter in his throat to come up as well. Well after two hours of trying to do this, he still had the food caught. This meant he could not swallow anything, even his own saliva, or it would back up into his airways and choke him. We called his GI doctor, and were told to go to the ER. So I called some friends who have teenagers who graciously came over to put the kids to bed and stay with them.

When we got to the hospital, the ER waiting room was packed. But I thought we would get seen relatively soon because this was an airway issue. However it was 2 HOURS before he was triaged - in other words before the nurse even assessed his condition. We got to the ER at 8 pm, saw the nurse at 10. He was immediately put into a room, hooked up to everything, and we waited some more.

Of course by this time, I'm feeling a little empty, and of course I had no one dollar bills to get anything out of the vending machines. So Kelly and the nurse both encouraged me to go somewhere and get something to eat. The nurse said, "He's going to be here a while." Great. So I run and get something, breaking a bill, so I am fully prepared for the long night ahead. I get back to the room and he still hadn't seen a doctor. After I eat, I run out to the car to get something I left. When I get back, Kelly looks much better and said it had finally gone down! He had felt something funny in his throat, so had massaged the sides of his throat while swallowing hard. That had done it, after 5 hours of being stuck, 3 while in the ER. We aren't sure what happened, but he was very grateful to avoid the emergency endoscopy.

This was 11 pm. Of course right after this the doctor walks in, ready to order the IV needed for the endoscopy drugs. Of course he had to make sure Kelly could drink fluids, and told us we could leave. It was 11:30 by the time we left. It will be interesting to see what the ER bill will be for all their help. :-)

Kelly's throat is very sore - he says he feels like he swallowed a brillo pad. He didn't eat anything yesterday until late last night when he got hungry enough to be willing to swallow something. I told him that he will go to extraordinary measures to get out of helping me clean the house before Bible study. :-)