Week 14 Recap: Finding "Normal"

This week I found out that our neighborhood has levels of PCE (the nasty carcinogen, tetrachloroethylene) higher than the state allows due to the laundromat leakage in 1989 about a block away, and have been wondering what this means for us... I've always believed this house was making us sick. I drink more water than anyone in this family and I drink it out of the tap. If PCE isn't in the water, is it in the ground? We’ve kept a vegetable garden for years! Our house was not one of the random houses tested, but it would be interesting to know.

Well, back to the recap:

I’m beginning to believe ergocalciferol (prescription dose Vitamin D) might be causing or contributing to what I call occasional “left subclavian” pain— pain that is in the general area below my left shoulder that tends to follow the left subclavian vein/artery. Sure enough, within a day of taking the ergocalciferol, this annoying and random pain was back. The good news is that it is not a long, sustained pain, but something that is just felt off and on throughout the day.

On Wednesday morning I went in for the EGD (esopagogastroduodenoscopy), in which the doctor sent a scope down my esophagus and took a look around. At 8:30 in the morning, I was prepped and ready to go. My blood pressure at the time was 106/72, and I was hooked up to a saline IV solution. By 9:15 I was wheeled into the procedure room full of monitors and equipment.

The nurse told me she was going to inject some medicine into my IV that would make me sleepy, and then told me to lay on my left side. I proceeded to lay on my left and the next thing I remember, I was waking up in a completely different room, the procedure already completed. I was informed that the doctor had tried to talk to me but apparently I was still out cold. It doesn’t take much to knock me out, it just takes a bit to keep me there! I don’t have complete memory of laying on my left side, so I am sure somebody must have been there to catch me. We joked later about the medical staff taking bets to see how long till the patient hits the table.  Somebody could have scored big on me!!

As it turns out, I have a “small hiatal hernia” and biopsies were taken from both the stomach and the duodenum (small intestine). I doubt anything will turn up regarding celiac disease since I have been gluten-free for three months (to the best of my knowledge and abilities).

After the procedure, I felt a bit woozy, but otherwise fine. I tried to sleep off the medication, but in a noisy house full of kids, telephones, and barking dogs, even a medicated sleep was impossible. Oh, how I would have loved to sleep! Once the medication finally did wear off I realized just how sore my throat, stomach, and small intestine actually were! To top it off, I had to deal with this achiness for about two more days, including the continual taste of blood in the back of my throat, and an unpleasant three-day flare-up of acid reflux.

The arrival of the weekend marked my next dose of ergocalciferol, and right on schedule, I felt the first definite heart palpitation I’d felt all week and a double palpitation later in the day. I was also experiencing left subclavian pain again off and on all day, just when the same pain earlier in the week had finally settled down. One other thing I noticed with the ergocalciferol is that for a day or two after taking it, my stomach will feel somewhat glutened and achey. I’ve been having doubts as to whether there isn’t some cross-contamination or small amount of gluten in the pill.

ODD THINGS DURING THE WEEK:

• A headache enough to make me nauseous-- not so much when I sat down but whenever I stood-- both sides of the head.
• Left arm felt slightly numb, and the front of my left shoulder a little achy, and left hand tingling-- on two separate days during the week.
• Tongue began tingling again, late in the week.
• In the wee hours of one morning I woke up enough to feel a heavy trembling in my neck.  I was too groggy to worry and noticed only that it was a very heavy trembling when compared any previous trembling I had felt.  I fell back asleep almost immediately.

Week 14's "physcial therapy" went well.  My treadmill walks seemed easier — no palpitations, congestion, or pain that I noticed.  I totaled 115 minutes with Pilates, 80 minutes with weight-bearing exercises, and walked 16.35 miles. 

In spite of some very minor setbacks with the EGD procedure and possibly with ergocalciferol, it was a good week.