health probz part 1

This is long, picture-less, and not terribly interesting... but my grandma's, mom, & dad will probably read it and mostly I just want to have it documented!  Also, who am I kidding, there's no way my dad will make it through this whole thing.  Calling it.  And HEY GAMMY & NANA!!

I want to write out my health story for the heck of it.  Also mostly because it's a big part of my prayer life right now... and I cannot wait to see how God moves through these prayers! Maybe someone can relate and it will help them get to answers more quickly in their own health issues!!

I remember being in 7th grade and doubled over in pit-of-the stomach pain during stressful times- cheer tryouts, namely.  20/20 on that one.  Whatever.  The pain was so cyclical and would come almost everyday for a couple of months or three.  or four.  and then disappear.  Then in 8th grade one of my friends gave me tums and it was the best day of my life.  I never told my mom about the pain prior to then because I was afraid if she took me to the doctor for it they would do something to me that was embarrassing.  I'll leave it at that.

Eventually tums became candy to my iron stomach.  And then stopped working.  The pain was absolutely debilitating.  I guess I cracked and told my mom freshman or sophomore year.  At some point during high school I had a barium swallow to check for ulcers and reflux.  Obviously they saw nothing from this, typical.  I definitely had diagnosed myself with severe acid reflux by the time college came.  The big dog prescription meds worked but my pain didn't seem to be triggered by food or even stress anymore.  It came when I was hungry, when I was full, in the middle of the night, during exams, exercise, basically it was super unpredictable and very inconvenient.

I'm guessing an age here but I'm thinking when I was 15 or 16 my dad had fixed a big steak dinner, I ate a bite, swallowed, annnnd it got stuck in my throat.  It was so scary!  I freaked out.  It felt like I couldn't breathe and I thought I was choking.  Turns out it was stuck in my esophagus, not my trachea. Incidents like this started increasing in severity and frequency starting in college.  Eating breakfast on the way to campus, shooting my cousin's wedding, at a ministry fundraising banquet... food gets stuck (normally red meat or bread), I excuse myself from the table, and then pray and jump around, try and get it out and cry and freak out because it is the worst feeling EVER!

When Karl & I first got married our good friends came to visit us.  At this point I was having red meat issues like 1 in 20 times.  Karl grilled steak and, shocker, it got stuck.  After 3 hours of getting sick in the bushes outside I was begging for a hospital.  After lots of failed nurse's efforts, they put me under and did an upper esophageal endoscopy and removed the steak from my throat.  Best feeling ever waking up free from that nasty.  And let it be known that I felt like SUCH a fat girl crying at the ER counter telling them I had steak stuck in my throat.

The doctor that did that procedure saw that my esophagus has like bands around it, constricting it, making it too small for certain foods to pass, called strictures.  This is caused by scarring from years of acid reflux.  Winning.  So, he did two follow-up procedures to dilate my esophagus.  This is apparently relatively common and has to be done every year for a lot of people.  Also I abandoned red meat at the ER.  Haven't looked back since.

However... in the past year I have definitely felt that my esophagus is constricting more, I feel nauseas literally all the time, and my reflux is starting to give me a physical allergic reaction- itchy jaw, swelling tongue, itching skin.  WHAT. IS. WRONG.

Last week I had an ultrasound to look at my gallbladder/liver/spleen.  It came back normal.  On Friday I'm having another EGD.  This time the doctor is going to biopsy my esophagus and my stomach... she is looking for a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis or celiac disease.  Gag me if I have celiac.  Then I can be like every other girl and be "gluten free."  EE, as I'll refer to eosinophilic esophagitis, is an allergic reaction that causes inflammation within the esophagus to foods that you eat.  Typically it's 6 foods that most people react to- eggs, peanuts, milk, wheat, soy, and seafood.  What?  That's literally everything.  The thing with a positive diagnosis of EE is that the next step is to have allergy testing to determine exact foods that may be causing problems.  This part, I am down with.  Pinpointing what it is that I am exactly allergic to and getting rid of it.  OK.

I am SO looking forward to these procedures.  I know that sounds insane but I want them to find something so it can be fixed!  I am so tired of feeling bad.  I literally cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't have a physical complaint/pain/ailment.  I distinctly remember feeling my normal stomach pain and nausea on my wedding day.  The total pits.

I am praying for answers and resolution!  I want diet and lifestyle change (and maybe a little surgery or something... what?) to be remedies and not more medicine!  I also don't want my diet to change too drastically, ya know, as in I would like to continue eating like normal person + some healthiness.  I'm praying remedies this month, thru this doctor, from our ultimate Healer!  I know Karl is sick of hearing me say I don't feel good, however he would never say that! I'm praising God for my awesome husband who is always quick to take care of me and I know hates seeing me feel badly as much as I do.  I have already seen awesome answered prayer!  I have had a hard time find a gastroenterologist that I like, that listens to me, and that I feel really wants to get to the root of the problem instead of putting a band-aid on my esophagus and I LOVE this doctor!  Karl & I prayed long and hard before my first appointment with her and God provided an awesome appointment.

I'm looking forward to writing about healing and health and answered prayer in the coming days and weeks!
Hannah K.C. Burton

annnnd a picture of me and Gammy and Nana because they're the only ones that probably made it this far