Day 2 — Mayo Clinic

Well Day 2 has come and gone. Yes, I know it is only 4:30 p.m. here but my day with the clinic is over.

Let's just say it was a very long day that started at 2:30 a.m.

There was a really bad storm that came through Rochester last night and at about 2:30 a.m. a bolt of lightning hit something right outside the hotel. It may have even been the hotel it hit, but either way it made the loudest noise which woke up dad, Bernie and myself instantly. No big deal, right? We all laid back down to go back to sleep, but then the fire alarms went off in our room and throughout the hotel.

These aren't your typical fire alarms either. No, they were these obnoxiously loud things that hurt your ears if you stay around the noise too long. Needless to say we ended up heading down to the lobby because it is only smart to vacate the hotel if a fire actually happened. Well, it turned out that the lightning hit something that set off the alarms and fried the breaker. So not only were the alarms going off, but they were going to stay on until maintenance guys could get to the hotel to fix it. This included the fire department not being able to turn them off. So we sat downstairs in the lobby (which didn't have the obnoxious noise) until about 4 a.m. when the hotel was finally able to get the alarms to turn off in the rooms. The alarm was still going off outside out room, but it was at least quiet enough to go back to sleep. They ended up getting all alarms off at about 4:30 a.m.

Well, we had to be up at 5 a.m. anyways to get ready and head over to the hospital where my endoscopy was going to be done. So it was an early morning.

I checked in for the test at 6 a.m. and was taken to my pre-op room at around 6:30 a.m. and was on my way to the pre-op center at 7 a.m.

I say pre-op center because that is exactly what this was. There were about 60 patients in this room spread out somewhat evenly with nurses for each patient. The doctors and anesthesiologists would come and talk to each patient and then by 8 a.m. that room was cleared out because there are 60 operating rooms where they take patients to.

So I was on my way to the operating room for my balloon assisted endoscopy (which is basically them taking a camera and putting it down my throat into my small intestine to exam to see if there was anything that could be causing my blood loss). Thankfully I was completely knocked out, but not after a very different experience.

The nurses and anesthesiologists were having a hard time getting an IV started on me because I dehydrated from cleaning myself out last night for the procedure. So after sticking me somewhere near 10 times and not getting the IV started, they decided to help me relax by giving me Nitrous. I have had Nitrous before, but never like this.

I was about as high as a person could get I think. My whole body tingled and everything went quiet except for the three voices of the doctors and nurses in the room. Then I started to get like panicky and paranoid and was pretty much wigging out from this Nitrous. Not to mention, I wasn't able to pass out from the gas right away which made it worse. It truly was a feeling that I would be very happy never feeling again. THey finally got the IV started and then gave me some meds which knocked me out in about 3 seconds. That was a good sleep because it was the kind that you don't wake up from.

Dr. Alexander did the procedure, but much like most other things I have had done, he didn't find anything in my small intestine that would be the cause of the bleeding. Now that can be taken two ways. A positive and a negative. Negative because they didn't find anything, but then again positive because they didn't find anything. With my SBS history and missing 40% of my small intestine there has always been a concern that something could one day go wrong with my small gut. So from that standpoint it was a positive because there was nothing wrong.

But it is just one more test that didn't show anything. But it was also one more test that hadn't been done before, so at least they were able to rule something else out.

I woke up around 10 a.m. from the procedure and was back in my original room around 10:30 a.m. where I was given some water and frozen ice to eat before finally being let go around 11:15 a.m.

The only negative from the procedure is my throat is killing me. It hurts to swallow and eat and drink for that matter, but hopefully a good night's rest will help heal it and I will be back to somewhat normal tomorrow.

Dr. Hart called this afternoon to just verify that I knew the results of the test which was pretty cool because it just shows how things are done here.

Tomorrow morning I have a CT Scan with contrast at 9:30 a.m. and an ultrasound at 1:30 p.m.

That is it for tomorrow. At least as of now. I suppose that could change, but that is what is on the schedule for tomorrow.

It has been truly amazing how effective and efficient this place is. Everything goes off my Mayo Clinic number and I think the longest I have had to wait for anything was like 15 minutes. There are sometimes it takes 15 minutes just to sign in to get registered at other hospitals. I have been to many, many hospitals and this place blows them all out of the water. It really is cool.

On a side note, I want to again thank everyone for the Facebook comments and posts and for taking the time to check in on me. I know I said it yesterday, but it really is amazing to have the type of support I have received from all of you.

Well that is it from here in Rochester today. We will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Hope this finds everyone well!!

Sotti