Schatzki Ring

Here's the email I sent out to everyone this morning, thanking them for their prayers.

Literally the last time we left this very building, we were in shock - Zena had cancer.  That was nine years ago.  

The parallels are eerie this year.  These pretty bad symptoms started in October (same as 2006), there were a lot of missed diagnoses (same as 2006), finally in late January we go to Dr. Clark who checks out the inner plumbing (same as 2006).  

This time, however, the results are MUCH different.  Here's what we've learned:  we have three red streaks - an big irritation - inside the stomach.  He took biopsies, and we'll find out what it is and deal with it.  He made it sound simple.

ALSO, Dr. Clark discovered a Schatzki Ring.  This may sound like a Polish Crime Syndicate, but is in fact a bit of callus that has formed inside her esophagus that built upon itself until it made a ring around the esophagus, making it more narrow.  The good doctor was able to cut away at that this morning, and we'll see the rest of the ring fall away in the coming days.  This was partly responsible for some of the symptoms. 

The other symptoms will hopefully be diagnosed when the biopsy results come back in a few days.  We'll go from there, but everything seems quite a bit more upbeat this time around.  I'll be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed with joy.  The context is that the last time I saw this doctor in this very room, things were pretty bleak.  So we're feeling quite a bit of joy now.

And Zena's feeling quite a bit of drowsiness now.  But good news all around, and thank you so much for your prayers!

Obviously some good news to start the day!  I do want to add - only because I don't think I haven't done it on this blog yet:  Zena's doctors were Lewis and Clark.  And yes, they did exploratory surgery.

Mommy spent much of the day resting, but we're all in good spirits here.  The future is much brighter!  Madison came home from school today, and the rest of the afternoon was a bit of a whirlwind.  We did have quite a bit of homework to do, which was surprising.  She had a math word problem to do, as well as some spelling assignments.  She is spelling words like "successful" and "believable" on her test tomorrow, and these are words that many adults have trouble with.  In fact, I'd say if we were all forced to write without spellchecker programs to cover ourselves, the world would be in some serious grammatical problems.  There would be word crimes everywhere!

Speaking of which, Mommy did something nice for Daddy - on June 20th, he has a ticket to go see Weird Al with his friend Alan from high school.  But this is not any ordinary ticket.  This is a "Mandatory Czar Experience."  Basically, Daddy gets to meet Weird Al this summer.  And sit in the fourth row.  And get a complete set of Weird Al Trading cards (over 125 cards in all!).  There's a personally autographed Mandatory Tour Poster.  There's another Weird Al merchandise gift too, but I'm not entirely sure what that is.  ANYWAY, I'm going.  I'm not going to say how much this cost, but it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime sorts of deals, and Mommy was saying "Why not?"

So apparently we'll be watching "The Weird Al Show" through its entire run with Madison, and I'll see if I can get Weird Al to say some sort of greeting to her (that I can record) from the show.  We'll see how that works out.

Moving on:  can you believe that January is almost over with?  Yes, Madison would say it is believable.  Tomorrow is our second speech therapy session in Alpharetta, but Daddy won't be at that one.  Duty calls!  The work schedule is about to get a little more crowded in the upcoming weeks.  But we'll still make time for each other.  The good news is that in the coming weeks, Mommy is going to be just find.  And that's just fine with us!