A JOYFUL NOISE

Hannah and I have planned a mini vacation to VA beach back in July. We planned it tentatively knowing that I may have to back out the last minute due to my health conditions. We were blessed to be able to stay with her cousins and not have to make or possibly cancel reservations with a hotel. This past weekend, I felt "good" enough to take that mini vacation. Three days before I was feeling horribly sick and lethargic that I was afraid that I would have to cancel my trip but God oversaw that, and had me feeling functionally better for me to escape for a weekend with 6 wonderful ladies: Hannah and Trube Short, Ruthie, Olivia, and Pat. What a wonderful time we had getting to know Hannah and Trube's cousins and what a great hostess she was. It was wonderful to get to know Olivia and Ruthie, and Pat. We arrived in Williamsburg around 7pm Friday night the 13th. It was a pretty good trip over to Williamsburg. We all went for a walk once we got there and once we...

For the past few days, I've been feeling as if I've taken a step backwards rather than forwards. Since my x-ray last week, I have been feeling more nauseated and more pain than I have been feeling the past month. It's very frustrating. Frustrating not knowing what is causing this pain an nausea. I can be fine eating a meal one day and the next time I eat it I end up feeling horrible. Gastroperesis is a tricky thing. I usually have pain when I eat or after I eat foods. However, for the past week, even DRINKING FLUIDS makes my stomach ache and sometimes I get nauseated. I'm not sure if that is suppose to be part of gastroperesis. One would think that fluids are easily digested and easily goes through the GI track but like I said, it's been a rough week since my x-ray. I have left a message with my doctor to see if I can see him earlier to determine if something else is going on inside my stomach or GI track. For the past two days, I had trouble eatin...

So, today was one of many UVA appointments regarding my stomach issues. I was not allowed to eat/drink anything after midnight and my exam/x-ray took THREE hours long!! My X ray is called a Small bowel follow through. Basically the worse part of the tests is drinking down 3 cups of barium. YUUUUUCK! Those stuff sticks to your mouth and gives your horrible after tastes. I was glad to be able to rinse my mouth out, although what I really wanted to do was to drink a liter of water to get rid of that barium taste. Sure, it was "flavored" but still it was not the most pleasant thing to drink. The tech took pictures every 15 minutes to see how well the barium (contrast dye) moved throughout my stomach to the small intestine. After about 2-1/2 hrs of pictures, drinking barium, and shivering in that cold X ray room, the team of doctors/radiologist came in and used a special tool to poke around my abdomen area and took "close up" pictures of all part of my GI. Wel...

I received the report from my endocrinologist, Dr. Vance. All my blood work came back within normal ranges----praise God! I don't have adrenal insufficiency as once thought and my thyroid levels are working fine. This is good news in many ways. We still don't know what is the sole cause of my stomach issues besides gastroperesis. I guess the doctors are looking into every aspect and avenue to see if there is another cause of my stomach issues besides gastroperesis. This Thursday I go in for my small bowel follow through xray as this test is usually done after one is diagnosed with gastroperesis. I'll have this done at UVA. My new medications, Domperodine has not come in yet. This drug is not sold in the US so therefore I have to get it from a compound pharmacy / order it from Canada. They've called me twice and told me they haven't received my prescription yet; so I'm not sure what to do since I mailed it out almost 2 weeks ago. Hopefully they w...

So today I had my appointment with my pituitary specialist at UVA, Dr. Mary Vance. She's a very sweet and kind older doctor and she really spent time with me. She looked over my medical history and my past MRI and told me that she could say with confidence that I do not have Addison's Disease which can cause GI issues. She really believes many of my stomach issues has to do solely with GI and my gastoperesis. She explained that since earlier this year, I received cortisone shots for my painful shoulder back in Feb/April there could be a possibility that some of the cortisone leaked out of the bone.into the bloodstream. She explains that this causes the pituitary glad to temporarily "shut down" thus not producing cortisol. So when blood tests were run while I was sick in the hospital, the hormone ACTH will show as low and give a reading of low cortisol levels (which leads to Addison's disease or adrenal insufficiency). Now, she's not com...

Disclaimer: These are just thoughts that are in my heart as I struggle through my sickness. We are all called to love one another and care for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Please read and give me an opinion/thought if you wish to share "The steadfast Love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your Faithfulness" Lam 3:22, 23 I have often had this memory verse pop into my head during the moments I need this reminder the most. I love the song that goes to this verse and of course I love the verse itself. It's so comforting knowing that no matter what trials we face in our Christian walk, God's love is abundant and unfailing....He is always faithful to us and will never leave us. Trials come to our lives in any moment and in many ways. During this time, Satan will take every opportunity to lure you far away from God's open arms and try to convince us that we are not loved by our F...