The Swallowing Adventure

If you remember last week's lame blog entry, you may remember that I promised pictures, so here we go.

First, Bryan was here for a visit. Here are my men together:

Vic's family came up to visit Bryan. Vic's sister Alice brought a lovely tart:

Vic's sister Patty brought delicious cupcakes:

Vic was his usual selfless self, foregoing these treats to make sure there was enough for the rest of the family. However, he did have his regular lunch, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Much more than he would have enjoyed the tart or the cupcakes. Much more. Mhm.

This is about as close to pouty as he ever gets. Poor baby.

In addition to promising pictures, I also mentioned his endoscopy. So what could be better than a picture of him at his endoscopy?!

Don't worry, peeps, he was just mugging for the camera. He wasn't really nervous. ;-)

And here he is after:

Pretty much the same; maybe a bit less perky.

I also mentioned the barium swallow on last week's blog. So that happened on Wednesday this week. It was awful. Not for me, because I was just in the waiting room. But Vic said it was one of the worst procedures he's ever had, and let's remember that he lost a kidney 15 years ago, had an angiogram seven years ago and died last year. The doctor wanted him to take a pill. A pill! The same evil contraption that nearly choked him to death a couple of weeks ago! He warned the doctor, "Uh, this isn't going to work." And they said, "Well, take it anyway." So he did, and guess what happened? You can't? You're not trying hard enough. That's right. It got stuck. Now, except for the fact that he had a pill lodged in his throat, this was actually a lot of fun for Vic as he watched the medical community kick into high gear trying to find something to help him get the pill unstuck. And the upside to all of this is that he was vindicated—the pill got stuck while someone was watching, and now he doesn't have to feel like a hypochondriac.

The doctor's office called us the next day to tell us the official results: there is a narrowing of the throat that is causing pills to get stuck. And what did they want Vic to do? Another barium swallow. That's right. Another of the worst procedure he's ever had. Fortunately, they made it very clear this time there would be no pill involved.

So I called over to get it scheduled. This was on Thursday, October 27. "The first available appointment we have is November 9," the scheduler said. I deflated. Now we know there is an obstruction, and we have to wait for two weeks to get it taken care of? So I put on my best disappointed voice—which did not take much effort—and said, "Oh, really?" "Yeah," she said, "the speech therapist only has one appointment a day, and she's booked until then." "Oh," I said, continuing with my disappointed voice. "I see. Well, maybe you could call us if there is a cancellation? My husband can't swallow, you see, and the only thing in the way of his getting rid of his feeding tube is the ability to swallow."

The scheduler took pity on my and must have taken my sob story to the speech therapist, because she called back a few hours later and asked if we could do it the next day. Normally the speech therapist is off on Fridays, but she was going to be in for some other reason and agreed to give Vic his test. And once we got that swallow study scheduled, we were able to schedule another procedure with the gastrointestinal (GI) doctor on Monday (more on that later), which is great, because after that, the GI doctor goes on some sort of vacation (can you imagine?) and isn't available until November 11.

Vic's second barium swallow was much less traumatic than the first, and he got to see a video of his swallowing. It was extremely cool because it was an X-ray video, and he was wearing his glasses. So he looked like a skeleton wearing glasses and drinking stuff. Ummm, OK, it was much cooler than it sounds. Anyway, the kind and flexible speech therapist showed us all the things that were going on:

• He definitely has a narrowing of the throat. She thinks it is scar tissue from the radiation.
• He is getting a little liquid stuck in his epiglottus (no, I am not going to look up how to spell that at 9:30 on a Sunday night), which then trickles down his airway.
• He is getting a little liquid trickling down his airway even without the epiglottus (no, I'm still not looking it up) situation.
• Then he is getting a little liquid on his vocal chords, which is causing his raspy voice.

We really learned a lot about the mechanisms for swallowing and breathing, and she gave him some swallowing tips that have been really helping him.

Now, about that second procedure—he's having another upper endoscopy tomorrow, but where the last one was exploratory, this one is a treatment. They're going to do a dilation and try to open up his throat. This is awesome news, but of course, it is a little scary. So please be thinking of him tomorrow at 11. (Don't think about me; I'm not having a procedure. I'll just be in the waiting room. Send all your thoughts to him!)

So what are we looking at now? Well, the corner is still a long way away, but he is marching inexorably toward it. (Not really. He's baby-stepping toward it, but "marching inexorably" makes me sound smart, and let's face it: this blog is all about me.) Because a lot of good taste is coming back, we are hoping tomorrow's dilation allows him to swallow more than just Jell-O and ... well, Jell-O. The sooner he can swallow, the sooner he can get off those [insert long string of adjectival curse words here] cans of "food." They make him nauseated all day long every day, which pretty much makes him unable to do anything but recover in between feedings. [Insert long string of adjectival curse words here] "food"!!!!! If he can do that, then he'll be at the corner before you can say "Bob's your uncle." Or maybe "Bob's your uncle who farts a lot at Thanksgiving and always gets drunk and tells secrets that were much better left untold."

So that's my much longer, much more informative and (hopefully) slightly more entertaining update for the week.

I often like to leave you with a picture of Vic and Wags, and I happen to have a really good one:

Have a good week, everyone, and I'll catch up with you as soon as I can!