ALEXA'S JOURNEY TO A NEW LIFE: February 2015

2/16/15

Here is an update on Alexa, it has been 7 ½ months since her pancreas was evicted. She turned 19 in Jan & is doing pretty well for the most part but still has the horrible pain on her left side that gets most unbearable when she has a bowel movement. We have really been having a very hard time finding the right doctors to follow up with her. We have been paying an outrageous amount for health ins & I decided it was time to try to find something cheaper. I started looking & found one that was pretty good & was more than half our deductible that we had been paying, it was $5500 instead of $12,500. Instead of paying $670 a month it would only be $545 so I decided to check into it further. The biggest drawback was that it would not cover out of Utah unless it was an emergency. We decided to go ahead with it since we knew we couldn’t continue paying the higher one. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that we don’t have to go back to Minnesota for anything. The good thing about changing ins was that we had a whole new group of doctors on this one!!

Well last week Alexa was scheduled for an endoscopy & a colonoscopy to see if he could see any reason for this horrible pain. We had switched back to our previous GI dr after the CT-scan the other one did. I wasn’t really that pleased with this dr either but with that ins we were pretty limited. We had the procedures scheduled with Dr. Alsolaiman since we had been seeing his NP. Tues Alexa had to prep for her colonoscopy for the next day. That meant she had to be on clear liquids all day & drink the lovely magnesium citrate drink that night to clean out. She did the clear liquids ok but when she started trying to drink the lovely drink she couldn’t keep it down, she was just too nauseated. I called the hospital & told them we would just have to do the endoscopy since she wasn’t able to keep it down.

I got Alexa up bright & early Wed morn since she had to be to the hospital by 7 AM. It ended up being a horrible experience!! The dr didn’t even come in to talk to us before beginning the procedure! After she came out he finally came in & told me that he had gone ahead & done the colonoscopy anyway since “he didn’t want us to have to come back for it.” I was surprised & asked him how he was able to see anything without her being cleaned out. He just said he could still see ok! I feel like he just wanted the money for it!! Then he went on to tell me that her lower colon looked fine but the upper colon had lots of stool. He asked me when she ate last & I told him she had some dinner the night before. He said that it was still there, that nothing is moving thru. It makes me think she may have a kink there in that spot that hurts so much or maybe scar tissue is creating a blockage. What I don’t understand is that she does have bowel movements, several a day usually, so something IS getting thru! Well, I asked the dr if he thought all of this could have something to do with her surgery & he said, “What surgery!!!!” I was in shock & said, “ummm, she had her pancreas & spleen removed 6 months ago!!!” He just said, “Oh, I wasn’t aware of that.” I couldn’t believe it!! That he would actually do anything to her without reading up on her history 1^st!! After I came home & thought more & more about it, the madder I got! I started reading reviews on him & found that he has done this before! He did an endoscopy on someone who had a condition with her throat & ended up tearing a hole in her throat & she had to be in the hospital for several days! The husband was so mad about it he posted his review over & over! I called his office & talked to the nurse & let them know how upset I was. Then I started looking for another GI to take her to. It takes hrs to go thru everyone on my new ins & read all the reviews but that’s what I did over the next few days.

I think I have found the right dr to take her to finally, I hope anyway! Every single GI dr in their office has really great reviews, not even one bad one in fact. I even prayed about this before making the apt! She has an apt on Thurs so we’ll see! I have also been trying to find an endocrinologist since the one we were going to, that we really liked, isn’t on the new ins. The funny thing is that there aren’t any with really great reviews so we are just going to the one with the best ones. We went to Idaho this past weekend & this morn Alexa has a really major attack where she could hardly breath. She keeps saying that that spot where it hurts so badly feels like a muscle & she may be right since when we gave her an extra muscle relaxer she finally calmed down. We are praying that somehow we can figure this thing out!!

Some good news is that Alexa bought a car. It is a cute little Kia, Forte. She really has been enjoying having a bit more freedom & being able to drive places with her friends. She has also met with a counselor at UVU & feels really good about taking a few classes. She has decided to major in business since she would like to have her own pet business someday. She bought a cute poodle to breed with her Golden Retriever so by now by the end of March we will have some cute Golden Doodle pups. Lincoln, her Poodle is an annoying dog that chews everything in sight so she will be taking him to obedience school soon!!!

Things are really looking up for her if we can just get this pain figured out!!