Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The following post has a lot of references to poop. If this is not your cup of tea, skip it.

Also, have you noticed that I am sarcastic or that I handle stressful situations with humor? If I make jokes, it is because that’s how I know how to deal with a sick husband. We make a lot of fart/poop jokes around here.

One of my students told me this one before school let out and then I saw it again here.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Smell mop.
Smell mop who?

Get it?

Moving on.
Here is a quick history of Fluke’s health for those of you that don’t already know.

1998-Fluke was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, they thought it might have been giardia but after testing, decided it was ulcerative colitis which is related to crohn’s disease.

February-2002 Fluke has his colon removed. The chance of colon cancer in a person with ulcerative colitis is very high. His colon was looking pretty beat up and the surgeon he went and saw on a Thursday said he needed to get it out for the benefit of Fluke’s quality of life. His colon was removed on the following Monday. The surgeon made a “J-pouch” which is a makeshift colon formed from part of his small intestines. Fluke is given an illeostomy bag.

March-2002 (6 weeks later) Fluke is hooked back up. The illeostomy bag is removed. Things don’t ever really improve. He is still sick.

December-2002 Fluke goes back in to get an illeostomy bag again. He is supposed to have it for 4-6 months. The surgeon hoped that this would give everything much more time to heal. There is a lot of unexplained pain. Because of the bag, nothing is supposed to pass through. i.e. there should be no “pooping.”

Summer of 2008-Fluke has his small intestine cut completely in half because stuff is still passing through. Still lots of unexplained pain. A LOT of vomiting too.

(There were other surgeries/procedures/doctors that I have left out to shorten the story)

Yesterday-We met with a new gastroenterologist (g.i.) and surgeon. Holy crap! (ha!) They know so much more than anyone we have ever talked to. The g.i. ordered a lot of tests. Fluke had ELEVEN vials of blood taken and gave some urine and came home to collect some other samples. Yay!

The g.i. told us that there is a possibility that he was origionally misdiagnosed and could possibly have crohn’s disease or about a million other things. I think our main concern is just figuring out what exactly is wrong with Fluke. Why is he so sick?

Today, he got to start collecting 24 hours of urine. Yes, there are instructions for what to do if you actually pee more than the carafe will hold. And those instructions would be…call your doctor, you are peeing way too much! Also, he got to collect 4 poop samples. Here is why I am telling you this. One is to be frozen. One is to be refrigerated. Two are to be left at room temperature. I think this is funny. Can you see us going to the hospital tomorrow. You hold the urine carafe, and the cold poop. I’ve got the frozen and room temp poo, let’s go.

Also, at 5 tonight, he took TWENTY GIANT pills in an hour. I am not a pill taker. Fluke is and even he was gagging. He had to take four at a time, every 15 minutes. He said they were “salty.” He gets to take 12 more at 5 am.

This is all to prep for two scopes tomorrow back down in SLC. We aren't sure which way they will be going in. There are three possibilities that we can think of, mouth, stoma (stomach where his intestines are sticking out) or bum.

When we were driving to SLC yesterday, we drove through a crazy storm. I'm hoping the weather is a little nicer for the drive tomorrow. Fluke will be partially sedated and he is usually the driver.

Here are a few seconds of the rainstorm. The rest of the time I was rocking back and forth wringing my hands. BECAUSE IT WAS SCARY DRIVING IN THAT RAIN speaking from the passenger's point of view. Turn your volume down again.

Rainstorm from Kate Fluckiger on Vimeo.

Just for fun,

This is one of our favorites from Fletch.





And this is my favorite thing ever and is completely unrelated.

I'll update when we know more!
Please feel free to ask me any questions, we aren't shy.