ALEXA'S JOURNEY TO A NEW LIFE: 6 months after surgery

12/20/14

Alexa is finally at her 6 month mark!! It really is amazing how much better things are now & I’m sure they will continue to get better & better as time goes on. We just returned from our trip to Minnesota & had all her testing done & met with the team of doctors there. Everyone is so pleased with her progress. Dr. Chinnekotla is especially happy about her being on insulin for so little time! When he found out that she was completely off insulin he asked when she came off. When Alexa told him she stopped in Oct he said, “Wow! That is excellent! You get a 10 for that!!” He was so happy about her progress that he gave her a big hug! He asked her what her plans are & she told him she was planning on going to college. He said, “When you graduate from college give me a call & I will celebrate with you by having a couple of beers!” Haha!! He is such a kind man & spends his whole life making other’s lives better!! I don’t think he ever takes off work!!

We have been very busy trying to fit all the dr appointments in before the end of the yr which is when our deductible will start over. Also, Alexa is still having some major pain with her bowel movements. We have been going to a dr over at the U hospital & have been pretty frustrated since she is only in the office on Tuesdays, which happens to be my busiest day of the week! I had emailed Marie in Minnesota about Alexa’s pain with BM & she wrote back & said that Dr. C wanted her to have a CT-scan. That was much easier said than done!! She had to fast & then go early in the morn to drink that horrible, chalky drink. She was so nauseated & it ended up taking her most of the morn to get it down. Later that week Dr. Byrnes from the U hospital called about Alexa’s scan & told me that everything look fantastic & perfect. I was a bit skeptical & decided to call the imaging ctr when we hung up & have them mail a copy to Minnesota. After another week of Alexa hurting I finally got an email from Marie telling me that they had received the disk & Dr. C had looked at it & said her colon was completely full of stool & she needed to do an extensive cleanse to get it out. We were supposed to go in to see Dr. Byrnes the next day but I called to let them know what Dr. C had said & told them we wouldn’t be coming in since we needed to stay near a bathroom all day. I was pretty upset with Dr. Byrnes! That day was a pretty miserable day & it made Alexa pretty sick for the whole week. I had a feeling we didn’t succeed in getting everything cleaned out so I set up an apt with the nurse practitioner of the GI office we used to go to & asked if we could go in for an xray to check the colon before our apt. We went in to see her the following week & sure enough, she said there was still a significant amount still in there. She gave us samples of a medicine that is supposed to clear things out over a 2 week period by just taking this one pill a day. She told us she wouldn’t have to take anything else with it. I was a bit nervous since our trip to Minnesota was 3 days from then but I knew it was important to get her cleaned out. We started on that pill the following day which was Fri & by Sat she was getting the job done, haha! By Sun it was becoming a real problem & making her so sick that I thought I was going to have to cancel our trip. I couldn’t imagine having to take her on a plane in that condition! I prayed about it & talked to Ty & we decided we still needed to go since they would know what needed to be done. We would just have to make sure we sat by the bathroom on the plane!

The Minnesota trip turned out really well as I said before. I was a bit surprised when I asked Dr. C how long she would have to be on 2 of the medications that she is on & he said, “Forever. Don’t ever take her off of those!” Also her GI dr there was concerned that I had switched her to a different multi vitamin. She said the one they had prescribed was the only one the people who didn’t have a pancreas could absorb. She told me that if I wanted to keep trying her on this one if I thought it was so good we should get her vitamin levels checked in a month to see if they are ok. No one was concerned about her being constipated still since it seemed that she was getting cleaned out but that all changed. By the time we returned home she had quit going again & after the 4^th day I started giving her more stuff along with that pill that was supposed to be so wonderful. It is working again but we will have to get another xray & apt with the GI to check after Christmas. She is still having so much pain with each BM & all the doctors there in MN seem to think it is connected with her endometriosis. I took her to a new OB-GYN dr last Fri over in Provo & came away quite depressed. All the options he gave us were things I really don’t want to do with someone as young as her who has already been thru so much. I am looking into some more natural ways to deal with this. I have dealt with this all of my life & have 4 other girls dealing with it. I don’t know why Alexa has to have the worst of it but I don’t think we should put her on another medication!!

She is doing really well coming off her narcotics & should be able to drive very soon! Oh, also she has completely passed her GED test & got her diploma!! YAY!! She also finished the Book of Mormon & has graduated from seminary!! YAY!!! She has been looking into starting college, looking for a job & a car!! I think she will probably start going to the singles ward even!! I am so happy that she has been moving forward with her life! She is sad that her best friend & cousin, Vickie Bentley, has left on a mission but hoping to be all better by the time she gets back so they can room together. She enjoys hanging out with her other best friend & cousin, Natalie & her sisters. I really think that once we get this constipation cleared out & her endometriosis under control she will be on the road to 100 percent!! These pics show the difference the 6 months has made!! I look back on them & wonder how we made it thru.