I should buy stock in Hall's strawberry cough drops.

The last few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. Pretty much every one who knows me is aware that I have "tummy troubles". Something is basically always wrong with my stomach. Sometimes I can't eat. It's stupid. Well, things have been getting worse lately, particularly in the reflux department, so three weeks ago I went to see my internist to talk about what's going on. He did some tests, took some blood, told me to go back to my gastrointerologist and have my esophagus scoped again, and then come back and see him so we could talk about what to do next. In the course of those tests, he found that I am still anemic from some bleeding problems I had almost a year ago, I have extremely low vitamin D levels, like everyone else in my family (normal range is between 32 and 100. My number was 5.8. Pretty sad.) And something may be going on with my thyroid- I had trouble reading his handwriting on the results. And he did an EKG because sometimes I have these really scary heart palpitations, and found that I have an "irregular sinus rhythm", but lots of people do so it's not anything to worry about. That is somewhat comforting.

So then the next week, I went to the hospital and had my esophagus scoped. It's not pleasant to think about, but things went pretty well- the whole thing takes a little more than ten minutes. As everyone and their mom suspected, my esophagus is pretty torn up from years and years of exposure to reflux, and a host of medicines that don't do their job. The doctor said I have a hernia in my esophagus (which explains why I can't swallow sometimes, but is still extremely lame) and he said that I had Barrett's disease, which is basically a precancerous thing that makes really bad burns on your esophagus while your esophagus tries to grow itself a new lining (ew). He said my chances of getting cancer were pretty slim, though, as most of the time it's middle aged white guys who get it. I may be white, but I'm not an old man. So I have that going for me.

Well, after the procedure, I did ok, but then it was getting harder and harder for me to swallow, and my stomach was upset for a few days. So I called the doctor to see if there was a chance that the procedure had disrupted anything, and they didn't really answer that question, but they said that my biopsy results came back and I do NOT have Barrett's. This is a good thing, but still. My esophagus must look pretty bad if they thought I had this horrible disease thing.

Well, then I caught a cold. And this sucker will not go away. Everything started to go better, except for the cough (you know, the cough sticks around for what feels like forever) but then it was getting harder to breathe, and then on Saturday I woke up and was pretty sure I had pink eye. I'm not sure why, but you can get it when you have a cold sometimes. So Sunday morning my mom took me to the doctor, and the doctor was a patron of mine whom I don't particularly care for, and she basically blamed everything on my allergies. She gave me a cortisone shot and made me do a breathing treatment, and wrote me FIVE prescriptions. Antibiotics to make me feel better. Hard core cough syrup to help me sleep. Eye drops for my stupid pink eye. A short term inhaler because my lungs are so inflamed. And a prescription for another inhaler should I need one later on. This is crazy, really.

So I took everything I could yesterday afternoon and last night, and didn't sleep. Every time I moved in my sleep, whether it was slumping down a little in my pillows or rolling on my side, I woke up because I couldn't breathe all of a sudden, and then I'd cough for ten minutes, and then try to sleep again. This happened every hour. Painfully lame. This morning I feel worse than I have all week. Hopefully the pharmacy's worth of medicine I am consuming will help me feel better really soon. I feel sorry for Brandon. I can tell he is getting tired of hearing me cough.