• Background information can be found here: Bad news, and (More) Bad news.

I had my appointment with my GI specialist today, so there’s further information on how I’m doing.  The report from my GP was accurate — I’ve got an 80% blockage of my bowel, though it is in my small bowel this time and not in the large at the site of the previous surgery.  He’s told me to come off work for now while we sort out our three options for treatment from here: we can go in an perform another section; we can attempt a balloon dilation, and/or we can change up my medication.  Our plan is to do all three at once.

LOL. I like the skull. Makes me feel safer.

The new medication is one of those crazy-expensive medications, so there’s all the paper work for government assistance.  It’ll be an injection every two weeks, provided of course the tests I have upcoming don’t show that I’ve somehow contracted tuberculosis.  Once that’s approved we’ll start the process of weaning me off the azathioprine and searching for funding to offset the cost.

The second step will most likely be the first thing we do, which is to run a colonoscopy and try to dilate the stricture with a balloon.  Everyone is slightly nervous about this one as we tried this several times last go-round, and twice I ended up transferring back to the hospital in an ambulance after.  Once I tried to get up off the table during — the next one they brought an anesthesiologist and gave me a quasi-general.  I’ve been assured that there will be lots of drugs administered before/during the procedure, and that truthfully the best we’re hoping for is that we can use this to buy us some time while we wait for step three.

Surgery.  While there is an outside chance that the medication change or the dilation might get me back on my feet, the doctor feels that this is unlikely and we’re going to have to go in and cut it out again.  That’ll take time more than anything else — somewhere in the four to six week range to see the surgeon, then then however long it takes to get a bed and a slot.  That makes it sound worse than it is, and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m complaining about having to wait. The wait won’t be long, and I don’t have to pay for it.  Thank Christ for the Canadian health care system — we’re struggling to keep afloat with me off work sick as it is, I can’t imagine if we had to pay for our medical care out of pocket too.

And that’s where we are now. At least it isn’t [suspected to be] cancer.  Now I’m supposed to sit here and wait, again, to get an appointment for surgery. I should take some photos or something this time to keep a better record of what happens when I’m sick.  There are a few photos of me in the hospital just after my surgery where I look so sick it frightens me, and I don’t remember every feeling quite that sick at the time. It would be interesting to look back and get a better perspective on the whole thing.