I almost died

[Gingerbread Demon]

What is still scary is that I thought I was getting better and then everything went wrong. A person just never knows. Anyone else have something crazy like this happen to them?

November 28 1998 I had a perfectly normal morning woke up did emails, read a book, then mum went out for a walk in the afternoon and all I remember from then was she knocking on the door and I remember that I had trouble getting up from sitting and hopping to the front door and opened the door, then keeled over. I had a CVA which was a 10 day stay in hospital and from the X-Rays they did there was a largish scar at the centre of my right cerebellum from the event. I've had to take a single aspirin every day since then to keep my blood slightly thin.

December / January 2005 I had terrible stomach pains for a few weeks turned out they found lots of little white dot things all over my peritoneum and could not work out a cause for this, the best guess they had was TB of the stomach and I was on medications for 14 months after having a surgery to remove some necrotic tissue.

So I came close to death, and it was more scary the 2nd time though.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

November 28 1998 I had a perfectly normal morning woke up did emails, read a book, then mum went out for a walk in the afternoon and all I remember from then was she knocking on the door and I remember that I had trouble getting up from sitting and hopping to the front door and opened the door, then keeled over. I had a CVA which was a 10 day stay in hospital and from the X-Rays they did there was a largish scar at the centre of my right cerebellum from the event. I've had to take a single aspirin every day since then to keep my blood slightly thin.

December / January 2005 I had terrible stomach pains for a few weeks turned out they found lots of little white dot things all over my peritoneum and could not work out a cause for this, the best guess they had was TB of the stomach and I was on medications for 14 months after having a surgery to remove some necrotic tissue.

So I cam close to death, and it was more scary the 2nd time though.

I am so sorry you went thru all of that. Thank you for sharing these with me. It is nice to talk with someone who has been there and understands. I just found out today from my dentist that I damaged 4 front teeth with the enamel (from all the throwing up acid). I now have to have special tooth paste. And that I did damage to my taste buds. I will never have certain tastes again. I am pretty bummed about it right now.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

I go for another tube down the throat test to see if this ulcer is getting smaller, better and so on, on the 27th of this month. The test is no fun, but here is hoping it is good news...

 

[StarCruiser]

Keep positive! Good spirits always help.

 

[Non Sync]

I go for another tube down the throat test to see if this ulcer is getting smaller, better and so on, on the 27th of this month. The test is no fun, but here is hoping it is good news...

Just remember- if they offer you a free colonoscopy, make sure they do the endoscope first.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I just had a ct scan of my lower lumbar region because I have had pains and trouble for quite some time, and was thinking quite dark thoughts about the cause but happy now to learn that there are no defective disks in my spine, and it's just arthritis which was the last thing on my list of causes. So kind of relieved.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

I just had a ct scan of my lower lumbar region because I have had pains and trouble for quite some time, and was thinking quite dark thoughts about the cause but happy now to learn that there are no defective disks in my spine, and it's just arthritis which was the last thing on my list of causes. So kind of relieved.

So happy for you!

 

[DEWLine]

...oh HELL.

Glad you're able to tell the tale!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

So happy for you!

Thank you...... I was dreading what they'd find in the scan.

Those machines are huge and now so modern. I remember having one years ago you had to take off most of your clothes and have no metal on you but now you can go in one with clothes and not have to take off things like glasses and jeans which have metal parts like the little rivets and buttons.

 

[Non Sync]

Thank you...... I was dreading what they'd find in the scan.

Those machines are huge and now so modern. I remember having one years ago you had to take off most of your clothes and have no metal on you but now you can go in one with clothes and not have to take off things like glasses and jeans which have metal parts like the little rivets and buttons.

The first one sounds like an MRI and the second a CT. Different technologies at work. The MRI uses magnetic fields turning on/off and the CT uses x-rays.

This is why you can't have any metal around a MRI:

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The first one sounds like an MRI and the second a CT. Different technologies at work. The MRI uses magnetic fields turning on/off and the CT uses x-rays.

This is why you can't have any metal around a MRI:

Oh my.......... That's not good.

Yes you are right I was mixing up the terms. I thought older CT scanners had similar problems.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

UpDate!
I had my 2nd tube down the throat test. And this time it was good news. It seems the ulcer is shrinking!!
So no more tests no more surgery! I still have to take medicine for it but at a lower dose.
I am very happy and relieved! This has been a long and awful journey!
Though, they still don't know why or how I got the ulcer in the first place. So hoping it goes away and never comes back!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

UpDate!
I had my 2nd tube down the throat test. And this time it was good news. It seems the ulcer is shrinking!!
So no more tests no more surgery! I still have to take medicine for it but at a lower dose.
I am very happy and relieved! This has been a long and awful journey!
Though, they still don't know why or how I got the ulcer in the first place. So hoping it goes away and never comes back!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uclers can form for many reasons, and even can happen for no real reason.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

congratulations to the both of you!

 

[sevenstars]

Anyone else have something crazy like this happen to them?

It didn't exactly happen to me, but in late 2018 my mother, who was 93 at the time with quite advanced dementia, had a perforated ulcer like that. It came on VERY suddenly-- maybe three weeks where she kind of threw up a couple of times, had some days when her stomach was bothering her, other days when she was fine. She'd always had kind of a sensitive stomach, but before this started I'd just been thinking we really had that managed, as there hadn't been any problems in quite a while. I was just going back and forth with her doctor, describing what was bothering her, and he was saying "Well, you can give her some Pepcid," when one night at 4:00 in the morning: BAM.

LIke you it was absolutely emergency surgery. The recovery was a nightmare marathon: the surgeons were wonderful, but I definitely had the feeling that at 93 a lot of the staff didn't much care if she lived or died. But already in the emergency room the surgeon told us that they were having kind of an EPIDEMIC of perforated ulcers, after not seeing any for years and years. Later, another surgeon came to check on her one evening and said he had been in the operating room repairing one when my mother came in, and he thought "ANOTHER ONE?" He said it was the fourth one that week.

I've kind of wondered if there isn't a more virulent strain of H. Pylori going around? They tested her and treated her for that, but told me they didn't go into details like which strain it was. Well, you can tell I'm not a scientist!

When she tested clear, they said she could go off the PPI.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

But isn't Helicobacter Pylori quite common in nearly everyone?

 

[rhubarbodendron]

indeed. More than 80% have it (some statistics claim even 98%) and the vast majority never gets ulcers. It is likely that several causes have to work together.

Afaik it's not yet clear what co-factors have to occur but it seems that an injury to the slime layer that protects the stomach against its own acids is an important cause. Some scientists even think H. pylori is completely innocent.

I can only speak for myself but I never had ulcers until I had trouble swallowing and 3 samples of my stomach tissue were taken. Naturally H. pylori was present. I got 3 ulcers in the spots of the sampling afterwards. Fortunately, they healed again.
The cause of the swallowing problems later turned out to be a slipped disk that blocked the esophagus and could be fixed with manual therapy.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

indeed. More than 80% have it (some statistics claim even 98%) and the vast majority never gets ulcers. It is likely that several causes have to work together.

Afaik it's not yet clear what co-factors have to occur but it seems that an injury to the slime layer that protects the stomach against its own acids is an important cause. Some scientists even think H. pylori is completely innocent.

I can only speak for myself but I never had ulcers until I had trouble swallowing and 3 samples of my stomach tissue were taken. Naturally H. pylori was present. I got 3 ulcers in the spots of the sampling afterwards. Fortunately, they healed again.
The cause of the swallowing problems later turned out to be a slipped disk that blocked the esophagus and could be fixed with manual therapy.

Well that's good, glad you got that sorted.
As for the ulcers might the stomach have been irritated / mildly injured when they took the samples?

 

[JD]

UpDate!
I had my 2nd tube down the throat test. And this time it was good news. It seems the ulcer is shrinking!!
So no more tests no more surgery! I still have to take medicine for it but at a lower dose.
I am very happy and relieved! This has been a long and awful journey!
Though, they still don't know why or how I got the ulcer in the first place. So hoping it goes away and never comes back!

That's great news.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

As for the ulcers might the stomach have been irritated / mildly injured when they took the samples?

yes indeed. They cut the samples out with a sort of hole punch (same size of hole, but only one hole at a time).