I'm on TV on my birthday!

(Ooops... I accidentally posted this on the wrong blog yesterday!) I posted it on my Growing in Grace blog instead of this one. LOL

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I've rehearsed my lines. It's pretty simple, really. I pretty much just have to moan and say "Gurgle, gurgle."

And technically, I won't be on broadcast television. And technically my lines will be spontaneous and random... all as a result of the tube they're sticking down my throat as they perform an upper endoscopy on me, examining my stomach and my gastrointestinal tract on my 39th birthday! (Tomorrow, April 8).

A few years back I was diagnosed with a condition called Barrett's Esophagus. One of the main things I learned through this was how to spell "esophagus." E-O-A-U, in that order. Ha ha! Well, anyway, this condition could be called "Erosive Esophagus Gone Wild." You've probably heard of erosive esophagus. All the Nexium commercials and all. Acid reflux is the cause of this condition. Well, if erosive esophagus isn't taken care of, eventually the cells in the esophagus can change into a different type of cell. That's what happened to me, and I ended up with Barrett's. They say 5 to 10% of people with Barrett's end up with cancer, so even though I joke about it, it's a serious condition.

In order to monitor my condition, I'm supposed to open my mouth really, really wide and take Kodak pictures of my throat every once in a while. NOT! Really I have to have endoscopies done every 2 or 3 years. I just had one last year, in May, and as with the previous times, my condition had remained the same - which is good - it hadn't gotten worse. For most patients, this is what their hope is for the rest of their lives - to maintain their condition and not have it get worse. For years the studies have said that once a person gets Barrett's, the condition cannot be reversed. However, some studies have shown that some Barrett's patients have actually had their condition reversed. These are mainly patients who had a certain type of surgery.

A few years ago, I had this surgery. Now, the reason I had such bad reflux is because the muscle between my esophagus and stomach was weak. Not only was acid able to get into my esophagus, leading to erosion, but food was backing up as well. See, this muscle is supposed to act kind of like a valve, opening up to allow food to go down, but closing so as to not let food back up. But mine was essentially not working. So, I ended up having this surgery, in which part of the top of my stomach was stitched around my esophagus, to 'tighten' things up a little.

For the most part, this has helped. At first I had absolutely no food or acid reflux. After a while, things 'weakened' a little bit, and I now have a tiny bit of reflux. Anyway... for the past couple of months I've really been dealing with some irritation in my esophagus and stomach area. I finally went to see the doc, or at least his nurse practitioner, on Friday. After a series of questions and a quick examination, we decided that it would be good to have a look down there and see what's going on. The discomfort I'm having could be due to any of several different causes, so this will either show what might be causing it, or perhaps rule some things out.

I've basically lost count, but I think this will be my fifth endoscopy. Each time, I have prayed that they will look down there and see everything completely healed! I completely leave it in God's hands. Maybe this is a fleshly prayer, maybe not. I don't worry myself about that. I just pray and leave it in God's hands. All the glory is His no matter what!

Anyway... sorry about the title of this post. LOL! I just couldn't help myself. If led, please pray for your brother Joel on Tuesday morning. The procedure is scheduled for 9:30am Central time. It's really not a bad ordeal. The worse part is getting the IV. Sometimes they find the vein right away, sometimes they have to do a little, um, digging... But once the anesthesia starts to be delivered through the IV, it's night night time, and I wake up to my wife's beautiful face in the recovery room!