Mark has been experiencing some abdominal discomfort that sometimes becomes pain for at least six weeks. Lately it has increased in intensity and his stools changed in the last few weeks to something not good. Last night he was in a lot of pain, and I actually tried to get him to go to the ER then. He has been talking about calling a gastroenterologist for weeks, but he never got around to it. This morning he called, but they couldn't get him an appointment until after we were heading to Maryland. He called the primary care doctor, and she said go to the ER. So that's what we did.
We had tickets to go to the Giraffe Ranch in Dade City today, but we cancelled them. The lady on the phone at the ranch was very nice about it and will even let us use that money in the future since it was a medical emergency. Turns out Emily and Lowell are interested in the ranch, so I'm going to try to make another reservation for the four of us at the end of June.
We left the house at 10:45, arriving in the ER at 11:20. They are very prompt at checking you in, so we logged in on a kiosk, met with three people, and were all registered and paid up by 11:50. Not bad. At 1 p.m. he was called back for a CT scan and at 1:30 or so he was called for a blood draw. Then we sat together in the freezing cold waiting room until they got him a room, maybe around 2. Once in the room a tech gave him an EKG, and a nurse took his vitals again. Then nothing happened for a very long time. Around 3:30 the doctor came in, poked around a bit, listened to Mark tell his symptoms again, and said he should probably get a colonoscopy ASAP, but he'd know more when the test results came back. He also ordered an ultrasound of the gall bladder. Another hour went by and a nurse came in to read him the results of his tests. Blood and urine were all normal, except his sugar was 187. Hey, he's a diabetic. Unfortunately, the CT scan showed a thickening in the wall of the rectum. She pronounced that and then left. We immediately started googling that! Looks like it could be IBS or ulcerative colitis, but it doesn't usually mean cancer. Around 5:00 the doctor came back in and told us the same thing the nurse had said. He said the thickening "concerned him." Yeah, us, too. When they do the colonoscopy, he thought they would biopsy the thickened wall, too. He also said he would cancel the gall bladder ultrasound so we could get out of there. Five minutes after he left, a nurse came in and wheeled Mark off for the ultrasound. Ten minutes later she brought him back because it had been cancelled! Yeah, we knew that. By 6 p.m. we were heading out to the car. He also got a prescription for Prevacid for the heartburn and gas. We stopped at Publix to fill it, which took a half an hour, and finally made it home by 7:10 p.m. WOW! Not the day I thought we were going to have when we got up. Still, we are now armed with more information than we had before and the ability to order a colonoscopy even though it's only been three and a half years since the last one. During that one, they did remove a polyp but everything else was good.
Now we have finished our Shabbat dinner and have settled down to watch some TV. Really need that Shabbat wine tonight!
I also got the pictures up from Frank's visit. Here are a few for you.
I notice (in the dining room photos) that Frank has neglected to put on his civilian clothes over his costume.
ReplyDeleteI've always had my suspicions. Has anybody noticed that you never see Frank and Superman together?