Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

I'm really happy. I went to a GI specialist today, who told me my pain/heartburn/whatever was probably (mostly) mental, encouraged me to adjust my antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. C'mon. Really. I've tried everything from a box of Tums, Zantac, and Prilosec, all the way to Xanax and Percocet.

She said she'd run an endoscopy anyhow, mainly because of our timeline. So, in to the procedure room, a little Verced to erase the mental etch-a-sketch. After I wake up, they show me pictures from the endoscopy- there is an ulcer (or two) in my esophagus.

Now, they weren't happy, but I am! It's great to actually see a problem, rather than be told it's in your head.

They've sent off for cultures of this thing. It can happen from having a pill get stuck as you are swallowing it, but they really think this is CMV. It's considered rare in healthy adults- but what else is new for me? Just to make sure, they are running an HIV/AIDS test on me. I'm not worried, of course.

So, what's next? They'll tell me the results of the culture in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have a prescription to drink Lidocaine and take a pill that is used to coat the esophagus lining. It'll heal on its own, and it isn't something that would be a long-term worry like ecophageal spasm (which doesn't have a good solution).

We'll blog about the rest of our progress later. Things are on track for Thursday.

Labels: health, pretrip, ted