Medical Update
Hi friends,
*If you’re wondering why there are random bullet points, my website had an update, and when I press the “enter” button to make new paragraphs, it doesn’t seem to work. So using bullet points is the only thing I could think of to make spaces in between paragraphs.
Anywho, I just wanted to thank you again SO much for your love, prayers, and encouragement these last several weeks. I hope I don’t sound like a “broken record,” but I truly am so grateful for you and your prayers as they helped me through that rough hospital stay.
For those who may not know, I had to go to the ER (and was later admitted to the hospital for 8 days) because I was experiencing sudden and severe vomiting and dry heaving. It was so so horrible to go through. :’( I became very dehydrated because I couldn’t keep anything down, not even my important medications. We pushed small amounts of juice through my j-tube (it’s times like these that I’m extremely thankful for my j-tube!), but I was still getting worse, and my parents had to call the ambulance.
The doctors are still not exactly sure what started all of this (could be a viral gastroenteritis?), but whatever it was caused acute hepatitis. My liver enzymes were 10 times the normal range.
The doctors ordered a bunch of scans, and we also found out from the results that I have gallbladder sludge and gallstones. My bile duct is only 3 mm, and one of the many stones that I have is 8 mm. That’s gross.
Because it’s pretty large, the stone is not able to come out of the bile duct, so pressure is building up and dilating my gallbladder. Anyways, I’m not stable enough to have it removed, so my GI specialist started me on a medication to try and dissolve the stones. He’ll reassess with another liver ultrasound in 6 months to see if the medication is working.
I mentioned this on Facebook, but after my last 10-day hospital stay in September, my physical therapist and occupational hand therapist both worked so hard with me to strengthen my muscles as I was very weak from that mito crash. Well, the muscle weakness is bad from this recent hospital stay, so it’s hard that I pretty much have to “start fresh” again with physical therapy and occupational hand therapy.
On top of all this, I wrote in my previous post how I’ve been experiencing pain in both wrists/hands. I saw the orthopedic hand specialist, and I got diagnosed with De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis.
I’m more prone to it because I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. So I most likely have to have wrist surgery on both hands (and sadly they can’t be done at the same time). I see the OHSU hand surgeon on March 9th to talk more about everything. The hand pain is so bad, and it makes it difficult to do “normal” things….I miss hand lettering terribly (the piece above is an old one).
God has been using these new trials to teach me to depend on Him fully and trust Him. I read this prayer the other day, and it’s been on my heart ever since: “Do not waste my greatest sorrows, O God, but use them to teach me to live in your presence—fully alive to pain and joy and sorrow and hope—in the places where my shattering and your shaping meet.” ~Every Moment Holy
