My Celebrity Prediction

Kanye West will try to "change" Kim Kardashian to be more private. She'll try to avoid the paparazzi and the tabloids, which will annoy Kris Jenner and the E! network to no end. Kim will realize her entire "career" is based on the paparazzi following her and tabloids. This will lead to the upcoming and unavoidable Kim and Kanye split. Kanye will go nuts and then write songs for his daughter (North) and insult Kim forever. Insert the 500 magazine covers about the Kim vs. Kanye battle for the next decade. YOU HEARD IT FROM ME FIRST.

Everything will be okay, right?

There has been a lot of good going on in this life of mine. I have a lot of general anxiety, and sometimes writing it all out will help me realize that YES, everything is going to be okay. 1. My dad had a very scary thing happen to his heart recently. He has a condition called atrial fibrillation (aka "a-fib"). He has had it for many many years, but recently he has been having dizzy spells, fatigue, shortness of breath, and even had a fainting spell that resulted in him bumping his head. His cardiologist was at a loss, because it seemed that every single test he had on heart showed that it was perfectly fine (besides the a-fib). He went in for a routine cardioversion procedure to attempt to get his heart out of a-fib, and it didn't work. While he was there at the hospital, he very suddenly went into flash pulmonary edema, which is a very scary and life threatening heart condition that results in fluid leaking into your lungs. Luckily, the medical doctors rushed him into the ICU and were able to stop the edema and reverse the effects from it. He was then transferred via ambulance to a heart failure specialist in Pittsburgh.
I am only 28 years old. I realize that my mom and dad were older when they had me (my mom was 41 when she had me! Yeah!) but I was not prepared for something so sudden and life threatening to occur to my father. It didn't help that I was over 2,000 miles away from anyone in my family, and on the day that this happened, Chad was scheduled to leave for work related reasons for 2 days. I was completely and 100% alone, scared, and emotionally unstable. I did my very best to go to work and keep my mind off of it, but all I could think about was my poor dad sitting in that ambulance because his heart was failing and the doctors did not know why. I am very greatly for my sister Sarah, who was constantly texting and calling me and letting me act crazy on the phone.
After spending a few days in Pittsburgh, he had a team of cardiologists who put their heads together and did several more tests. They found that he has a condition called mitral regurgitation, which is where the hear valve does not function properly and can result in some of the blood regurgitating backwards into the heart everytime it pumps. What's even more interesting is that he could have had this condition for decades, and that there is a chance that it caused his a-fib. The doctors determined that the regurgitation fraction, while noticeable, was not severe enough to justify open-heart surgery so he will be treated with medication. He was sent home! He will be okay. I am so thankful for medicine and cardiology. Yes, Megan, dad will be OKAY.

2. My GI doctor put me on a medication called Nortriptyline in order to help take the edge off of the pain caused from my Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. It has HELPED SO MUCH. It took about 2 weeks to fully kick in. I seriously do not remember the last time I have felt this good. I even ate FRIED CHEESE STICKS and DEEP FRIED ARTICHOKE HEARTS and had no pain! YUM!!!!!!!!!! Amazing. I do still have some acid-related issues, probably a minor recurring ulcer or stomach erosion, but it comes and goes and doesn't really cause much of a disturbance on my life. Yes, Megan, you will be OKAY.

3. Chad and I started mandatory 1-day-a-week furloughs from our job because of the government-wide sequestration. No one in Congress seems to care, Chuck Hagel doesn't seem to care, and not even President Obama seems to care. It's almost as if they using DoD employees as pawn to further their own political careers. The House wants to say "OMG look how much of a terrible President he is! Everyone must vote Republican in 2016!". The Senate and Obama want to say "The Republicans are to blame because they block everything and refused to compromise!". The average American doesn't seem to believe that sequestration has done anything negative but that is because it is not in their face. They also hate federal employees and believe we are overpaid and lazy. Our household income has depleted 20%. However, because of the Dave Ramsey budgeting style, we know exactly how to handle this problem. We have eliminated all credit card debt, we have nothing financed, and we have paid off 5 of the 6 private student loans I took out. All we have left are student loans. We are so far ahead on the remaining student loans that the minimum payments are either extremely low or non-existant. We have entered into what Dave Ramsey calls "storm cloud mode" and we plan to live this way until the furlough is over. I look around at co-workers who do not know how they are going to make their car payments, mortgage payments, or how they are even going to have food on the table to support their families. Religious or not, the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace systems WORKS and because of that, we will be 100% okay during the furlough. The worst part about the entire furlough situation is that our student loans will now be paid 26 years and 3 months early, and not 26 years and 6 months early. HA! Yes, Megan, you will be OKAY.

4. I am going to my beloved Stone Harbor, New Jersey in 25 days. It is the only other place in this entire world I can go to and feel at home. My family and I went to this beach every summer for my whole life and we have so many wonderful memories. After my dad's health problems, I am so excited to go and spend time with him, my mom, my siblings, all of my nieces, my new nephew!, my cousins, and of course my husband. It is a much needed vacation and frankly, it will be the ONLY vacation Chad and I will get to have for the rest of the year. (see #3 - storm cloud mode means no travel at our own expense!) Chad's parents are coming to California to spend Christmas with us, so if I go anywhere else this year it might be for Thanksgiving or shortly after Christmas. And it won't be at my own expense. I am so excited and ready to go!!!

I WILL BE OKAY!!!!!!

Complications: Sphincter of oddi

SOOOOOOOOOO!

I had my EGD (upper GI endoscopy) with EUS (endoscopic ultrasound). As usual, I was scared shitless beforehand. And it didn't help that my doctor was running 4.5 hours behind schedule. Luckily, my nurse gave me a Valium and it actually HELPED calm my ass down. Thank you, nurse! My procedure only last about 45 minutes. The last thing I remember is my anaesthesiologist putting a mask over my face and saying "I'm going to give you some nice oxygen now..." and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. I had no pain, but did have some bloating and gas pains in my lower stomach from the air they had to blow around inside of me to take pictures. It wasn't bad, though. It resolved itself quickly. The worst part: my throat!!! YIKES! A mixture between the scope and breathing tube really tore up the back of my throat. I had some trouble swallowing solid food for about two days. It was relieved with Tylenol.

The results: My bile ducts are fine. Yay! No blockages, stones, tumors, nothing. No ERCP and therefore no pancreatitis!

They did find some very minor stomach erosion, possibly the onset of ulcers. They did a biopsy, but nothing came of it. Plus, they were not located anywhere near where I am feeling pain. It was so mild, that they didn't feel the need to prescribe anything for it. They will probably just go away.

The diagnosis is officially sphincter of oddi. There was no test to confirm that this is my problem, but based on my clean EGD, EUS, and blood work, this is what my GI doctor believes is the most logical solution.

The only known way to "cure" sphincter of oddi is to do something called a sphincterotomy, which is where they go in with a scope and literally remove the entire sphincter of oddi. However, there is actually MORE of a chance of suffering complications from the procedure than actually finding relief. Plus, there is a very big chance of the symptoms returning after a few months due to the scar tissue from the procedure. The best way to manage this is to find ways to manage the pain and learn what triggers it.

My first step in my road to relief of sphincter of oddi is 10mg of a day of nortriptyline. It is technically an anti-depressant, but only when it is given in quantities of 75mg or more. Anything less than 75mg is used for patients with chronic pain. It will help "block" my nerves from the pain signal. I started it yesterday, and surprisingly I think I have found some relief already. Not 100%, but I'm hopeful I will find some relief after using it for several weeks. I am supposed to try this for 1 month, and then I'll go back and see my GI doctor for a follow up. I do NOT want to undergo a sphincterotomy. Ever. I would much rather move on with my life knowing I have this condition and find ways to just manage the symptoms.

Some fun facts about Sphincter of Oddi that I have stolen from the interwebz:
-A sphincter is a muscle (usually round) that can open and close. When it’s working properly, the sphincter of Oddi opens to allow bile and pancreatic juice to flow through and then closes again. However, in a condition called sphincter of Oddi dysfunction, the sphincter muscle does not open when it should. This prevents the bile and pancreatic juice from flowing through and causes a backup of digestive juices. The backup can cause bouts of severe pain in the abdomen. This is probably why I had a very very mild case of elevated lipase levels.
-People who have had their gall bladders removed are most likely to develop sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. Middle-aged women also appear to be at increased risk for the condition, although doctors aren’t sure why. That's me!
-According to "DISEASES OF THE BILLIARY TRACT, SERIES #2", a study published in 2010 in PRACTICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY, SOD has been diagnosed in 1.5% of our general population. It has been diagnosed in 14-23% of people who has their gallbladders removed, mostly women. (That's a lot!).
-Treatment of SOD is difficult because of the complexity of the disease.
-When you google Sphincter of Oddi, you find nothing but terrible horror stories of people whose lives have been ruined by this disease. I need to remind myself to STOP GOOGLING IT!!! I refuse to become one of those people. First, my pain is not debilitating. On most days, it's about a 2-3. On bad days, it's like a 6-7. I WILL be okay and I CAN manage this!!!

I encourage anyone else with this diagnosis to comment and tell me your experience. Thanks!

Complications

So, I have been feeling great and than I had something happen. The area where my gallbladder used to be started hurting. Very suddenly one morning on my way to work. Unlike on a normal day, I couldn't find a correlation between this pain and food. And it kept getting worse. Therefore, I kept getting anxious. I was scheduled to fly to West Virginia for Memorial Day, so I went to Urgent Care to get to opinion of a doctor and find out if this was something ER worthy. I HATE going to the ER and will do anything to avoid it. The doctor didn't believe it was anything, told me it was probably a stomach bug. I asked her to please test my pancreatic and liver enzymes. In my head, I was thinking that if they came back fine then I would know it was probably unrelated to my gallbladder removal. They took my blood, told me to have a safe trip, and said they would call me when they had the results. Two days later, I get a call and my liver enzymes were perfect. However, my pancreatic enzymes were elevated. Granted, they weren't SUPER high (lipase = 416, amalyse = 140), but it was enough to where she suggested I get an ultrasound of my bile ducts when I got home to make sure I didn't have a gallstone or some other blockage that was pissing my pancreas off. When I got home from my trip to West Virginia, I called my primary physician and he agreed to have me come in and talk to him that afternoon. He called my increased pancreatic enzymes "pancreatitis" (that sounds so scary!!!) and referred me to a GI doctor with the recommendation of getting an EGD (esophagogastroduodenoscopy). He was glad that I had this mild episode of pancreatitis documented. I also had a repeat blood test, which showed that my lipase was back to normal (200) and that my amalyse was at 136 (only 6 above normal - practically normal). So whatever was going on with pancreas went away almost as fast as it showed up. Jeez, man. I went to visit a GI PA and talked to her for a while. She then relayed all of my information to my GI doctor, who suggested that I might have 1 of 2 things: 1) A gallstone. I don't believe this. When Dr. Vierra removed my gallbladder in 2011, he told me that I had absolutely no gallstones. However, just because I didn't have them then doesn't mean I might not have one now. When you no longer has a gallbladder, and your liver develops a gallstone, it will just sit in your bile ducts, therefore causing a blockage of pancreatic enzymes and pain. For doctors, this is the most probable cause of post-cholecystectomy pain. They see very often so I don't blame them for thinking this is the cause. They are just going by statistics. It's just hard for me to believe. 2) Sphincter of oddi dysfunction. In my crazy mind, this is what I have convinced myself that I have. I have read a lot of about it on the internet (because obviously the internet is the best scholarly resource ever... ha!) and I feel like this fits my symptoms better than a gallstone. This is where your bile ducts "spasm" and can cause pain and the slow down of bile, sometimes resulting in pancreatitis or liver problems. It can come and go. I'm not really sure how this is treated. I have read a lot of inconsistent blogs about how people had their SOD dysfunction treated. Bottom line: on Thursday, I am going to the hospital as an outpatient to had an EGD performed. This is where I will be placed under general anaesthesia and my doctor will stick a tube down my throat into my stomach and take pictures of my insides. By looking around, he will be able to determine if I have a blockage in my bile ducts. If I do, then he will then perform something called an ERCP (Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography). This is when he will be able to insert dye into my bile ducts and take an ultrasound. He then will be able look at whatever is in there and treat it right there on the spot. If he initially looks around and finds nothing in my bile ducts, then it's probably a safe bet that I have SOD. I have no idea what happens after that, but hopefully they can come up with a treatment plan if it does turn out to be SOD! As always, I have a million things I am anxious about. Here is a list: 1. When googling other people's ERCPs experiences, I read nothing but horror stories about how people ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks with severe pancreatitis as a result of the procedure. This freaks me out. It is said that ERCPs are always the most successful when you have them done by someone who is specially trained in the procedure. My doctor (Dr. Michael Mendoza) is apparently an expert in these procedures. According to his LinkedIn (yes, I am a stalker), he actually trained other people who do to ERCPs at UCLA. Maybe this means I won't get pancreatitis again (but much worse this time) and I can just go home after I wake up from the procedure. Before my gallbladder surgery, I googled it constantly and read a bunch of horror stories but I turned out fine. I hope I have the same experience this time. 2. I have to be put under general anaesthesia. I already had this done when I had my gallbladder removed, but I am scared of throwing up. The first time, I was only a little nauseas and then was okay and ate the evening after the procedure. But then the next night, I threw up all night... and again for almost 3 days until my surgeon called me in a prescription for nausea medication. I don't know if this happened because my entire digestive system was like "WHERE IS THE GALLBLADDER? I DONT KNOW HOW TO WORK ANYMORE AHHHH" and just threw up or if was residual from the anaesthesia. Either way, I don't want to throw up again for 3 days. 3. What if they look inside me and find a scary tumor and I have cancer and I am going to DIE AHHHHHHHHH. I know, this is very very unlikely. But seriously??? What if they do?? I just want to know I am healthy. :( In the meantime, ever since my visit to the GI doctor, I have restricted my diet to less than 10g of at per meal. Most days I don't even eat 20g of a fat a day. After about 2 days of this, I feel 98% better. Despite the results of this test, I have decided that this is my life now and I am going to have to eat this way for a while. In a few months, maybe I'll try to reintroduce more fatty foods in my diet and see what happens. I will update this blog after my test and hopefully my experience can help someone else who might be having the same problems as me. Thanks! :-) --Megan

Update from the my last post

Hello! So, my weird pain was resolved after taking a 14 day course of over-the-counter Prilosec. It was most likely some sort of ulcer or acid issue. During the holidays, I experienced a lot of pain but soon discovered that there was a clear correlation between my pain and food with trans fats. You know, food like cookies, brownies, cake, cupcakes, anything with icing and Crisco. All the good holiday food!! Once I stopped eating them, I have never felt better. 100% pain free!!! I imagine as I get older, I'll be able to tolerate trans fats better. But really, you shouldn't eat a lot of trans fats anyway. So it's actually turned out very well!

Here I Go Again

Exactly 11 months after my gallbladder removal, I was doing wonderful. I had no pain. Ever. I felt like a normal human being. I had forgotten what it felt like to be pain free. PURE BLISS! I developed a head cold and stayed home from work. I was laying on the couch and then BAM!! Pain in my right side. Then I started to get nauseous and totally lost my appetite. The pain is around my rib cage and goes down to my groin and abdomen. I went to urgent care to see a doctor, fearing that my appendix was about to explode or something. There was blood in my pee, so she unofficially diagnosed me with a kidney stone and prescribed me some pain medication and some medicine to suppress the nausea. I am scheduled for a CT scan this afternoon to see what the hell is going on. This is so reminiscent of my life almost 3 years ago. I was laying on the couch only to be bombarded with this pain in my right side that no doctor was ever able to diagnose for over 2 years. I had a CT scan, 2 ultrasounds, and several blood and urine tests only for everything to be normal. I am scared to death that I will go in for this CT scan, have nothing show up, and be told "just ride it out, it will go away" or "it's all in your head, take some Xanax". I think it's pretty obvious that I have developed some sort of mental trauma and anxiety over that entire experience, because I am so depressed and pissed off beyond belief and SCARED that I will have to go through it again now. I sound crazy. Please send positive thoughts my way today, that my CT scan will give me some answers. I haven't been able to eat much for 4-5 days (yesterday I did eat some pizza! that was awesome) and I just want to go back to feeling healthy like I was a week ago.

Gallbladder Posts

I've noticed that in the past few weeks my blog traffic has increased, specifically to my posts about my gallbladder surgery.

Here are some examples of the Google searches people are conducting:

21 year old with dysfunctional gallbladder
foods you shouldnt eat with a dysfunctional gallbladder
phantom gallbladder pains
dysfunctional gallbladder why do i need it removed?
dysfunctional gallbladders
gallbladder surgery blogs
gallbladder was chest pain everyday

I just want to encourage people who come across this to please feel free to leave comments! I will answer ANYTHING about my gallbladder surgery. I was SCARED. TO. DEATH. of mine because of the fact that I conducted so many Google searches beforehand and read so many horror stories. They were not realistic.

Today is 3 months + 4 days post surgery and I feel 99% better. I only experience pain in my surgery site when I eat foods that are VERY greasy, and it only lasts for a few minutes. This is the only reason I am not saying I am 100% better. I also ate 4 ounces of french fries last week with no consequences.
I am also back to running regularly and lifting weights with no pain. I feel absolutely amazing. If you have a dysfunctional gallbladder like I did, don't sweat it. Just get the sucker removed and you won't regret it.