Livin like LewLew

I know I haven't written in a while, I've been super busy with summer, traveling, etc. I wanted to write a post more specifically to people going through a rough time. And if you fall into that category, know that there will be bad days and there will be better days. We are all going through something in one way or another. Some may be overwhelmed with school, studying, work. Some may be fighting a battle that they just can't seem to overcome. Some may be mourning a loss. We all know what it's like to have days that are never-ending. But in the end, even if the days are tough, long, and sad, try and focus on the good stuff. Being chronically sick sucks. There's really no way to sugarcoat it. There are moments where all you want to do is scream and yell, "why me?" Sometimes all you want to do is give up. I know I had moments like these. Moments where it felt like I would never be able to eat again. But despite the trials and obstacles I faced, I kep...

I realized that I mention SMAS a lot, and some of you may not be fully aware of what it is. SMAS stands for Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome. Only 0.3% of people in the United States are known to have it. Sadly, I was one of those people. SMAS happens when part of the duodenum is compressed by the Superior Mesenteric Artery. When this happens, it is almost like a kinked hose or a pinched water balloon. If you were to step on a hose hard enough, no water would be able to pass through. The same thing happens with the duodenum when the Superior Mesenteric Artery does this. If you don't know what the duodenum is, it is be the tube between the stomach and the small intestine. Its job is to squeeze the stomach contents through the digestive tract. With SMAS, it took away my ability to eat, because there was no way for food to pass the kink. Since I went misdiagnosed for so long, my SMAS caused a lot of damage to my duodenum. SMAS is very rare and misunderstood, and unfortunately it i...

Recently, I had a pretty big medical exam called an antroduodenal monometry study. The test showed us the function of different parts of my digestive tract. It was a pretty awful, lengthy test, but I won't go into much detail. All that's important is that the test revealed that the section of my duodenum that was damaged has not recovered. My duodenum suffered for over a year, and it just hasn't been able to regain its full function yet. We are hoping that with time it'll heal and start working as it should, but if this doesn't happen then I might need to have another surgery. We are praying that another surgery isn't necessary, but if it is we will find a way to get through it. We didn't get the results that we had hoped for, but it is what it is. I guess the real question is what is my life going to look like until things are normal again? It's a pretty hard question. Currently I am able to get around 1000 calories by mouth which is an ACTUAL mirac...

This past weekend marked two WHOLE months since my second surgery and it's kind of surreal. Two months ago I nearly died. It was one of the most terrifying things that I have EVER experienced. My body was rejecting any and all foods and I was beginning to get severely malnourished. Internally, things were in REALLY bad shape - between my entire bowel flipping on top of my duodenum and essentially crushing it and then my gallbladder's low ejection fraction (and some other stuff that you can read about in another post). It was pretty intense. Two months ago, Doctor John Petty knew me and the severity of my symptoms well enough to open me up and operate - essentially saving my life. I never in a million years would have thought that I would go through something so awful - but I am honestly so thankful for it. YES, it was the absolute worst. Not being able to eat SUCKS. But at the same time, I value everything in life so much more now. I value the little things, the things tha...

When things go wrong people tend to focus on, well, the wrong. People always asked me about how I stayed so positive through my illness - through all that I was going through. Yes, things were rough. Here I was with a feeding tube in my nose, connected to a machine 24/7. I was seeing more doctors than I had ever seen before. I was being pricked and prodded, like some science experiment. The worst part was for so much of this time, I went misdiagnosed. It wasn't easy. It took us 6 months to discover my SMAS and 3 months after that to fix it. AND then after all that, four months later, we discovered that something bad happened internally and I had to have major abdominal surgery to fix it. We discovered that if I didn't have that surgery, I may not have survived. My year was definitely not something I wished for - but in all the awful, the only thing that kept me going was the good. The fact that I was alive. The fact that I was able to speak and laugh and smile. The good is w...

It's taken me a some time to write this entry. I've been really worn out - but I guess that comes with recovery. Here's a little update on what has happened since I last wrote. First of all, the surgery was successful! Everything is structurally okay, but the challenge that we are trying to overcome currently is the function of my digestive system. It has been so long since my GI tract has actually been able to function in the right way (because things were so structurally wrong with it before surgery), so we are trying to figure some of this stuff out.    Four or five days after surgery, I began throwing up again.  This might be TMI so skip ahead of this paragraph if you don't want to read it. We discovered that there were 2 liters of BILE being dumped into my stomach when I began to violently throw up. It was terrible. AND if you don't know, there isn't supposed to be ANY bile in the stomach - especially NOT 2 entire liters of it. Bile is supposed t...

I haven't really shared a lot of details regarding how truly hard these past 14 months have been, but I guess I can start by saying that what I have gone through is something that I hope no one EVER has to experience. Sometimes it has literally felt like I went to hell and back, and then hell and back again. No part of this journey has been easy, but I've tried my best to focus on the happy in the midst of all the struggle. We've been pretty vocal about the things that I have encountered during my illness, but there are so many things that I haven't been ready to share - until now. Writing this is one of the hardest things that I might ever try and write - thinking about it makes me tear up. As you may know, I had major surgery last week. I am so incredibly thankful for my wonderful surgeon, Dr. Petty, who, by operating on me, saved my life. I am not over exaggerating one bit by saying that he is the reason that I am alive. There was no way of knowing how bad thing...