Here is the update with how the appointment went yesterday. After all the traveling and everything I was really tired and wore out when I finally got home thus no update yesterday. Lets just say I definitely am not looking forward to traveling there all the time. Traffic in Philadelphia is not very fun. On the way home to travel 15 minutes down took 1.5 hours on the way home. It took us 1.5 hours to get 10 miles from the hospital. Not fun!!!
Yesterday I had my appointment at Temple. The doctor is a lot older than the picture on the Temple website looked. Based on the picture I thought he was a younger doctor. Overall, the appointment went fairly well. I didn't walk out disgusted like I have with some other GI doctor appointments. I do have to say he is a little forgetful. I was in his office with him for over an hour just going through my chart and asking a bunch of questions. That is all that happened at the appointment. A bunch of questions and reviewing my chart he had to get the whole story on what's been going on for the past 5 years. I may have been on the exam table for 1 min, not quite sure if it was that long. At least he realizes how things are and thinks that things need done. I'm hopeful that good things will come out of seeing him and going to Temple.
He wants to do lots of blood work which I can get done at Geisinger or through my home health nurses. He wants to do a smart pill study which is where I swallow two pills and then I wear a receiver which tracks and records what the pills do for the next 5 days. After 5 days I go back and they will do an x-ray and then they want to do an anorectal manometry. That test I don't think will be too fun since its involving enemas - enough said. He also wants an EGD, esophageal manometry and Botox injection. Those can all be done in one procedure during the EGD. I'm sure your wondering what the botox injection is for and what it does. They inject botox into the valve between the bottom of your stomach and the small intestines. The botox keeps the valve partway open with hopes that it will allow the stomach to drain. All of the tests besides the blood work are pending approval of insurance which they said will take probably 2-3 weeks yet and then they can schedule the appointments if they are approved. I definitely don't have much faith when it comes to the insurance approving all of this especially since the botox injection is still experimental. He did say I would be a good candidate for the pacemaker except the fact that I am so young. If that is the only option left though he would do it. He did tell me though that there may be nothing that he does or tries that will help me.
I guess I will be on TPN awhile longer until we can figure something out or unless one of these procedures work. When he first met me and started going through my story he did ask me if there was one thing he could fix what would it be. None of my other doctor have asked that before.
I was hoping to soon be able to get back to work but I guess it is a little unrealistic right now, especially for the work I do. Maybe they will be able to work with me and have paperwork or something like that I could do for a couple hours a week. I'm just worried about using all my FMLA time and losing my job which would result in losing insurance and I don't even want to go there or think about that yet.
I just have to remember that all things work together for our good!!!
Taking it one day at a time!!!
1 comment:
I am so thankful you had a pretty good appointment. Hopefully the ins. company will come thru with the approval quickly. We serve a big God and we will just pray to that extent. I am sorry you had to experience that horrendous traffic. That is usually how it goes all the time. Actually depending on the time of the appt. we would hit traffic both ways. I hated it very much, especially since it was always bumper to bumper. I kept having heart attacks all the time, just thinking I was gonna get hit or someone else would get hit. Horrible, thats all there is to it. We are still praying for ya, and hoping things will start to look up for you.
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