Meckel's Diverticulum

Wikipedia it! If I was cool and Internet savy, I would link it, but alas, I am not! Here's the background on all of this. When I was born, I was born with Meckel's Diverticulum. It actually has a name-I didn't know that til 2 weeks ago. It is a "small bulge in the small intestine present at birth" according to my friend Wikipedia. It's a malformation of the gastrointestinal tract. (This is all Wikipedia right here-I am not medically inclined really).

So, an hour after I was born I was moved to the children's hospital in Dallas to get rid of my bulge, called an oomphalacle (try and say that one:). They made a tiny incision by my new cinammon roll belly button and did whatever they needed to.

Other than that, I had my share of ear infections and such as a kid but nothing happened until I was 7, in 2nd grade. One night I had the most painful stomach ache and couldn't fall asleep all night...My dad thought I had gas and spanked me and everything for being a brat (my translation, not his:) That morning, I still felt awful and so Mom took me to the doctor and then promptly to the ER. We thought it could be an appendicitis but the doctor said, "No way! Go to the ER!"

My colon (part of the small intestine) was twisted in a knot so I was in the hospital for a week and recovered for a week or two at home and then headed back to school. This actually made me miss so much school that I repeated 2nd grade...little known fact.

From 7 to age 24 nothing's happened at all, minus what I now realize were some foreshadowings junior year at A&M that I thought were food poisoning episodes. I got better so I thought that was all it was.

I got home from cstat Dec. 21st and felt a little puny but ok. The morning of the 22nd I went and worked out with Chaney and around 6:30pm started having a bad stomach ache...it got worse and worse and then I started throwing up. Around 12:30 that night Mom put me in the car and inbetween heaves, we went to the hospital. After an hour in the waiting room, and being the girl gasping for help from Jesus, (that was all I did in the waiting room) they put me in the ER on a morphine drip to get me ready for a CAT Scan...After getting my Nasal Gastric tube (NG) from the nose to the stomach and my CAT Scan, they told me I had an obstruction in the bowels and they needed to operate.

My reaction? Go for it! The sooner the better. 10 am on the 23rd we went to operate for 2 hours and they took out all 22 feet of small intestine and cut away the webbings of scar tissue that were wrapped around them so I my bowels could be "free" :)

It's something that 2% of people deal with and most are males apparently. It's only 5% chance that it happens again according to my doctor-so I'm actually in the 2%!

6 weeks is the full recovery but I'm not sure when I'll actually get back to cstat-February 3rd is 6 weeks. Hopefully I will return before then...

Today, my cough is really painful. Please pray for that, I feel like my guts want to pop out...literally:) I kept down all food which included some new stuff so that's good! My people in charge of me at my job have been so gracious and said not to worry about a thing...we'll talk when I get better. That is definitely something to be thankful for!

Little by little, I think I'm getting better. According to my timeline, I should be a little further along than 25-30% healed right now. That's about it at the moment!