Taking a look-see

“If you think you have to fart, let it out,” the nurse told me with a serious face.

“Okay,” I giggled.

“That’s the sound we like to hear.”

And so my day began at the colonoscopy clinic at a Baltimore hospital. It was a long-awaited appearance for me; one that I hope will produce good results in healing this affliction.

Is it inflammatory bowel disease? Is it a result of taking hardcore arthritis meds for so long? Is it a virus? Is it part of the arthritis? My doctor believes it is one of the above, but she cannot be to sure until she goes in, takes a look around, and steals a bit of tissue for further examination under a microscope.

Today was a fairly quiet day at the clinic. I am one of about 10 patients going under anesthesia for a colonoscopy and an enteroscopy. Together, most, if not all, of the gut system will get a once-over.

I really like my doctor. She uses plain language. She uses words like fart and poop. I mean, she’s seen it all and heard it all and nothing embarrasses her. Now I am not embarrassed, either.

Procedures like this were done without anesthesia not long ago. I remember having them done 20 years ago, awake, and it wasn’t fun. Nowadays, they knock you out with light sleeping meds and you wake up 20 minutes later none the wiser.

Except for the air they artificially put I your gut to get a better look with the tiny cameras that are used. So the procedure comes with a warning, sort of, that you will feel the urge to pass gas for some time. Like the nurse said, when you let it out, it’s all good.

Lo and behold, she was right. And I am not alone. The patient next to me, an older lady, has the same results. To me it has kind of lightened the mood of the whole experience. It’s all good.

My doctor passed along some photos she took of my colon. So I am passing them along to this blog. The results of the biopsies take a week to come back. She says there is something not right in what she found, but to me it’s welcome news because for the first time I believe we will get to the, ahem, bottom, of this.

Four months down and not out

Today was a liberation day, of sorts. Any time you are counting off days or months since a major sugery, it's cause for celebration. No matter what the progress is. That's what I've learned from this process anyway.

For me, today was the "four month anniversary" of my triple osteotomy or the right foot to correct a severe deformity caused by years of joint damage from my form of arthritisis. the deformity was causing the foot to roll out wildly to the right, almost to the point of snapping the ankle. My initial hope, and naive one I found out, was to simply - simply! - have the ankle replaced over two years ago. the ankle, at that time, was 90 percent trashed and left to the last remaining form of treatement. Replacement or fusion.

However, the foot, again with its deformity caused in part by the ankle's weakness, meant that no doctor in North America would attempt a replacement without first correcting the deformity. To not do it this way was described like this: having your tires replaced while leaving your car axles broken.

In 2008, I had the foot fused. But it failed as they often do. The next options were presented to me like this: have it totally fused and walk like Frankenstein, get the foot amputated or have this invasive procedure called an osteotomy. This would require "undoing" the first fusion, pulling out all five screws, cutting and pasting together the foot and then holding it together with eight new screws and a plate. They don't call it foot reconstruction for nothing, dude.

In the end, the hope is I could walk correctly, fit in a shoe better, but leaving the ankle, which is now an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on the trashed meter, still in pain. Down the road we will tackle that mess. Now looking at four months removed from the second surgery, I feel that God is bringing me out. It's been a long road, but it's been one of healing and it has brought me through many needed scriptures of healing. There is no healing without first having pain.

God has been faithful. It hasn't been perfect, I mean you are dealing with doctors so it never is, but from my perspective, everything is going well. Despite setbacks, like the wound that was left open for three months (but did not get infected), the foot is healing. You ca see in the above photos, the wound is healed and I am still in the walking cast. Soon, I will be allowd to go to physical therapy which I am excited about. I've lost muscle strength in the legs but that is receoverable.

Sometimes it takes longer than we think. But God heals! Don't just trust me. Here is proof.