What a scorcher of a weekend it has been! I’m actually at home this weekend and kind of grateful for it too! As much as I love warm, sunny, summer days, I think it would have been just too hot this weekend for Casper. Even going out walking would have been quite exhausting in this heat! I went out of an early run this morning, and nearly melted!
Were are at home this weekend and next. Alex is doing a bit of work on Casper, adding fancy stuff to him. I’m currently working on the process of merging my two websites into one. Don’t worry, my domain won’t be changing, nor how you read my blogs each week. However, over the coming weeks, you may notice a few extras on this website. I am merging my emmasadventures.co.uk onto this domain. A lot of planning and designing is going on behind the scenes. It will mean this site will temporarily have to go offline as we do the final stage. However, I’m hoping the site will only have to be down for just a few hours. I will try and give you notice before it happens. I will try and schedule it on the day I get the least traffic coming to the site, to minimise any disappointment.
Gastro
On Tuesday, I had my Gastro appointment. Sadly, it didn’t go quite how I hoped.
For anyone who is new on here, I have a hiatus hernia that got discovered after a barium meal examination was done. On top of that, I suffer from quite bad acid reflux due to all the medication I take for my illness. This again was also picked up on my barium meal, even though I’ve known about this issue for a long while, living off quite a restrictive diet to try and control it.
For anyone who doesn’t know what a hiatus hernia is, it’s basically where the upper part of the stomach moves into the diaphragm.
I attended my appointment feeling hopeful. I had it in my head, my consultant was going to be able to prescribe me something to heal my hernia and reduce my acid, so I can eat a wider range of food in my diet again and sleep laying down once again, which I will talk more about shortly. However, it was quite the opposite! Instead, I just tried to hold back my tears and accept the news.
She told me there’s nothing she can do about my hernia, it is something I’ve just got to live with. If it gets severe to a point I’m struggling to eat anything, I guess surgery would then be an option. However, surgery is risky for me. I’m at high risk of infection and anesthetists are never keen on putting me to sleep, due to possible reactions with all my medication and the anesthetic. Plus surgery really doesn’t sound pleasant! They would have to move my stomach further down and make a smaller hole in my diaphragm so it can’t creep back up.
My acid reflux is unlikely to ever go, as it is caused by all the medication I take. However, she has upped my Esomeprazole from 20mg to 40mg, to see if that helps to reduce my acid. The only thing that worries me about taking a higher dose, the absorption of my nutrients might get affected more than it already does.
My Diet
Sadly, my restrictive diet is to continue. I basically have to limit acidic foods. I have to learn what foods are ok on my stomach, and how much I can have of the acidic food in a day before my stomach starts to become inflamed from too much acid. To be fair, because I’ve been suffering for some time now, I have learned what I can and can’t have. I can’t have any citric fruits, brambles, or fruit juice. I can have tomatoes and caffeine but I have to know my limits. For example, I can’t eat tomatoes on their own but I can have a tin of Heinz baked beans, just as longs as I scrape some of the tomato sauce away from the beans. I can have 2 cups of coffee in a day made with 1tsp but that’s it. I can’t have spicy food and sparkling water I can have every now again but also depends if I have had anything tomato-based for tea. I also can’t have tomato-based food for too many nights on the row.
I’ve been told I can’t allow myself to get hungry. I’m not to eat large meals, which I physically can’t do, as my stomach just won’t let me. I have to make sure I’m eating something every few hours. Sometimes, I wake up in the night and my acid will be that bad I have to get up and eat something. I always have some oatcakes in my bedside table as an emergency midnight feast. If I don’t it just gets worse and worse, making me feel so ill and sick.
I often feel like my food gets stuck when I eat. But I’m guessing it feels like it is, as my food is sitting in the part of the stomach that has moved up into my chest before it slowly heads down to my main stomach. Maybe this is also why I struggle to eat much in one sitting and why I can’t bend down just after eating or drinking. If I do, I can feel everything coming straight back up. It’s a horrible feeling especially when you have fear of being sick.
Sleeping Is The Worse
Being on a restrictive diet is not nice, but I am kind of getting used to it. The worse thing for me is bedtime. My stomach is naturally worse on a night. Quite often I go to bed with a sore stomach, feeling sick. Even on a restrictive diet, my stomach has had enough by the evening. As the biggest cause of my acid reflux is medication, by the evening it’s had a good cocktail of drugs going into it. Some days more than others. Oh my stomach likes to make that very clear!
Then to make bedtime even worse for me, I cannot lay down flat, or even sleep on a normal pillow. If I do, I will be woken up an hour later feeling ever so sick. This was my night every night last year. I put my bed on blocks like recommended. It didn’t help. I propped myself up with more and more pillows, it didn’t help. Instead just got a stiff neck. Then early on this year, I discovered a new type of pillow. A pillow that rises my whole body up, allowing the use of gravity to keep my acid in my stomach, while I sleep. The pillow is great, well once you get used to it! I have to say I have now, but it did take many weeks. And I MEAN many weeks. Now I only wake up in the middle of the night feeling sick, if I get too hungry. I do try and eat something an hour before bed to prevent this, but sometimes, that’s not enough to keep me going throughout the night.
Here’s the pillow or the giant cheese slice, what Alex like’s to call it! I have one for home and one for Casper. I do sleep with a pillow on top too. It slopes you up from your pelvis and yes it does feel like you are sleeping sat up.
Other News
I currently have a bit of earache. It’s linked with the congestion in my sinuses. Often get the two together! But it’s ok at the moment, it’s manageable and not getting in the way of my life, so that’s ok! My sciatica has completely healed. Super happy about that! My nerve damage from my shingles is causing a burning pain on and off all day long, every day. But it’s pain I can cope with, without the need for painkillers, so that’s ok. My ankle is doing my heading to be honest! It was doing really well, then on Friday, walking home from work, I walked across a tiny bit of uneven ground and that was it, it went. The pain just seems to get worse and worse, the more and more I go over on it. The worse thing was, I was in so much pain. I couldn’t put weight on it. I didn’t want to draw any attention to me, as people walked by. So I just stood there, eyes watering away, biting my lip, trying to hide the pain, pretending to be busy on my phone, until the pain passed. Then on Saturday, I did the same thing again! When I go out running I wear a foot brace, which stops my ankle from rolling. It’s absolutely brilliant! I think I’m going to have to start wearing this walking to and from work.
My Anxiety
My anxiety has improved a bit from last week. Knowing mask-wearing and social distancing in hospitals, doctors, and my workplace is staying has put my mind at rest. I worry about Alex’s workplace as 2 people have now tested positive there this week. His manager has suggested a few things to help to protect him at work and to help to protect me, which is ever so nice and thoughtful of him. I know a lot of shops are keeping mask-wearing in place. We do our weekly shopping online, but it’s nice to know if we do ever need to pop into a shop, we do have that little bit of protection still. Of cause I am still very anxious about catching it, or any of my loved ones catching it too, especially anyone who is vulnerable. But I know that feeling is only normal.
One thing I did really like at my hospital appointment on Tuesday, which helped me feel a little safer, is the screens they had put up. I don’t know if it’s like this at all the hospitals, or if it’s just my local one. But in the waiting room, you had what was like your own little booth to sit in. You had a clear screen on either side of you. Here’s what it looked like:
Anyways, that’s it from me this week.
Until next week,
Stay safe
Emma
xox
