Thursday, August 11, 2011

Much ado over "nothing"

So, the stress of the past few days was pretty useless.  Isn't that always how it goes?  The hubs had his upper endoscopy procedure this morning.  According to everything I understand, he did very well with the prep and the actual tests. 

After the procedure, the doctor reviewed the pictures from the endoscopy.  Basically, the hubs has a slightly irregular Z-line (tissue sent for biopsy), hiatal hernia, and gastritis (also sent for biopsy).  So what does all of that mean?  If I understood the doctor correctly - the hubs has pretty annoying acid reflux (along with a significant amount of the population).  The irregular Z-line was likely caused by not treating the reflux as soon as it was noticed, but it is no reason for concern.

Dr. O'Loughlin prescribed the hubs a reflux medication, instructed him to follow an anti reflux regimen/diet, and come back for a follow-up in a few weeks.  Jason and I both asked questions about what the results really mean, should we be concerned, etc.  Dr. O'Loughlin assured us that these issues were relatively insignificant and could be corrected with behavior/diet modification. 

As far as the call from the nurse the other day, well that is another story.  The nurse either misread/misinterpreted what she was supposed to tell the hubs or it was all lost in translation with him.  She should have told J that he had a couple very small kidney stones (no reason for further consultation at this point, a couple very small gallstones (again, no need for concern right now), and a couple fatty deposits in his liver.  No one will ever know what she really told him because I am sure he went immediately to the worst case scenario.  Dr. O'Loughlin said that he does have some fatty deposits on his liver, not fatty liver/fatty liver disease/non-alcoholic cirrhosis.  He said that the deposits are normal for most people and that it isn't anything to be concerned about unless he has inflammation in his liver and/or his liver function tests come back funky (neither of which apply).

So, at this point, the biggest/best thing we can do is reduce trigger/reflux inducing food from our diet.  Considering that the list from the doctor has a lot of foods on it that the hubs loves, this should be interesting.  I am going to do my best to encourage him to eat things that don't cause him issues, but I have a feeling he is going to be stubborn about it.  Of course, I will also be telling him that I don't want to hear him complain if he is going to choose to eat foods he shouldn't be eating. 

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