Diagnosed

So, all the tests are done and all the tubes are out. A week and a half of sleepless nights are over and I feel a surprisingly strong sense of relief and I am no longer annoyed at, well, everything (Christian is heard to breathe a sigh of relief from his Redmond office).

It was confirmed that I have a hiatal hernia, which I knew. It's a sliding hernia, the more common type, thankfully, as a paraesophageal hernia is v. v. bad and can cause icky problems, like esophageal strangulation, which sounds like the esophagus would make little acky noises and hold its hands to its throat in the universal sign for "give me the Heimlich".

Anyway, the hernia isn't large, which is good, but it's either caused the sphincter at the base of my esophagus to become incompetent (useless thing) or the incompetent sphincter caused my stomach to migrate into my esophagus. Chicken...egg...

Interestingly, I also have a wastrel esophagus. It doesn't perform its job adequately, and sometimes not at all. The wretched manometry showed that the muscles don't move in synch to push food down, and sometimes give up all together and just flap around while looking for a place to nap.

Consequently, I can get a Toupet fundoplication performed to correct the hernia and limit the reflux, but this procedure isn't quite as effective as the full fundoplication, for which I'm not eligible because of the layabout esophagus. Another wrench in the works is that I'm too heavy right now to ensure the best outcome from the surgery. I actually felt a little sorry for the doctor, as he seemed a trifle nervous to bring up my weight, as though I would heave around my ass and smother him in outrage for letting that taboo subject be discussed amongst strangers, like my weight is an illegitimate child or Auntie's affair with the neighbor's hunky son. But really, saying I need to lose weight is like saying that global warming exists. We know it's there, it doesn't have a quick solution, but it's perfectly manageable if we all work together and exercise some restraint. Consequently, before I get the procedure done, I need to get the plump little ball rolling. Support and solidarity are requested.