A JOYFUL NOISE

Today I had a follow up visit with my GI doctor, Dr. Cerefice after 7 months. Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers as I went to the GI doctor today. First off, I am still seeing my usual fellow doctor GI doctor Dr. Cerefice, but I got transferred to a different "head"/ attending doctor. His name is Dr. Powell and I found out today from his nurse that he the number ONE GI doctor in the nation! I talked to Dr. Cerefice today and told him that my medication he put me on, Domperidone seemed to work some--by that I told him I can see some difference in taking it and not taking it. Because of this, both Dr. Cerefice and Dr. Powell think that there is more to my stomach issues than gastroperesis (emptying problems with the stomach to the intestines). They believe that my stomach has muscle issues in that it does not expand and contact as it is suppose to while eating or drinking. OR it expands/contracts too late after eating/drinking (explaining pai...

I was in Chucke Cheese's with my nieces last week and watched in amazement how each kid enjoyed the rides and games..how each kid ran around the play area fought over what games to play. I noticed how my nieces listened carefully to their parents as they told their children "don't let go of my hand.....stay with me.". My mom and I decided to stay in the booth with the rest of the food and coats, etc and just observe things around us. When I told my youngest niece I was staying with "paw paw" she said to me "don't let go!". She wanted to remind me that I was "not to leave my mom"....which was a sweet gesture. Throughout the time the nieces played, mom and I observed so many kids....some less than 2 yrs old, run around the area without any parents. That is scary; especially when minutes later, we heard a scream and realized that two little girls couldn't find their caregiver anywhere. How scared those kids must have ...

About 4 weeks before Christmas, around the time I returned from my Caribbean cruise, I started to have left shoulder pain again. Remember the shoulder that had to go through 2 operations by 2 different surgeons before it was corrected? I'm not sure what spiked this pain. It was pain so awful that it would hurt to extend my arm straight to the side or even lift up a simple 2 liter bottle of soda. The pain radiated down my hands and made it numb. I wasn't happy at all. (oh, and a side note, a long with this pain, I had a horrible head a chest cold that I've finally gotten over). Also along with my shoulder pain, my stomach was flaring up (and continues to flare up) as well as my chronic pain in my back and legs. I've thought to myself "could this get any worse?". I thought about calling a friend of mine who first saw me when I came in for the shoulder evaluation; but decided that with the holidays and all I didn't want to bother him, plus I figur...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope and pray everyone is healthy and enjoying this time of year. It’s hard to believe another year is almost over. As we celebrate this Advent Season, I am reminded of all of God’s goodness and love that has been shown to me this past year alone. As many of you know, it has not been an easy year for me. I have struggled a lot with health issues (more so than the past few years) and have been in and out of hospitals, have had numerous medical examinations done on me, as well as a couple of surgeries. I started the year with shoulder surgery on February 4, 2010. This surgery did not go well at all. I won’t go into all the details but in short, it took two surgeries (a different doctor) to correct the problem. My shoulder is much better now! PRAISE GOD! In between my whole shoulder ordeal, I suffered a lot of stomach issues. I was taken to the UVA ER several times due to extreme pain and vomiting. I spent 2 weeks in the hospital where ...

During these past few months, I struggle a lot and ask why. Yet I'm also learning to trust in God and remember all the good He has done in my life/ I don't remember all the names of the physicians that has taken care of me for 31 years at UVA, but I do remember my 2 awesome attending physicians who has taken care of me (one has retired and one is still taken care of me). I remember the true concern and help they wanted to give me. And of course, my ONE TRUE PHYSICIAN! I don't remember all the cards, gifts, etc and what they were or what they said but the sincerity behind it, I will always remember. (Dad had brought down a bag of stuffed animals from the attic for me to go through to give away. Though I have forgotten who gave me what I refused to let him give them away because I told my folks...someone cared enough to give me this as a child, I want to keep it.) I don't remember how many times Warren and Erma gave up their day to spend a day with me at the hospi...

Most of you know the struggles I have been facing over the past 8 months. It seems as if I face one physical ailment after another and honestly, I'm worn out. My energy level has never really gotten to where it once was and my weight still fluctuates as well as how I feel after eating....so on an so forth. I've been through countless testing and aside from the diagnosis of gastroperesis, the doctors aren't sure what's going on with my body; it's a puzzle for all of us. Last week I was struggling with a lot of stomach and back pain and running a fever that my primary care doctor order a CT scan of my abdomen and pelvis. She had also put me on a different antibiotic for the kidney infection i was diagnosed with a week earlier in the UVA ER. Because my symptoms was getting worse and not better, my doctor decided that a CT scan would be the best approach to figure out if there is anything else going on. While my abdomen CT scan looked normal, my p...

The reality is, I am sick and I haven't been very well for over half a year. The reality is that the doctors are working hard to figure out what else besides gastroperesis is happening in my GI system. The reality is that I need to continue to trust in God no matter what sickness comes my way. It seems as if something comes up one after the other....... Last Friday, I really thought I was having some kind of GI attack or issue. All of Thursday and especially Friday, I was in so much pain--- pain in my upper and lower stomach. Then on Friday, my pain was still in my stomach but more in the upper part and my back part near the ribs. I tried to call the doctor for an appointment but she couldn't fit me into her schedule. I refused to go to the Augusta Health ER because of bad experience a while ago; I didn't want to go to EmergeCare because they don't know my history and I didn't want to spend time on the history of my problem and not get treated. So I opte...