About 5 weeks ago John was diagnosed with stomach ulcers. He was put on a high dose of Omeprazole and that seemed to do the trick. Weeks later, the pain that the ulcers were causing were finally gone. But then, a new stomach problem began- nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and intense pressure. This went on for almost two weeks.. It got to a point in which he couldn't hold down any food or water. On Feb 21st, John came over to Mom's with me to stay the night. That day and evening the vomiting became very intense and frequent. So, that evening I took him to Lakeview ER. They did a CT scan and found that his pyloric sphincter was closed off and his stomach was filled with a lot of fluid and food. Later, the doctor explained that sometimes, when ulcers heal, the scar tissue can grow in a position that obstructs the flow of food into the small intestines. This is what happened in John's case... So, the treatment process began- they put an Nasogastric tube in to John in order to suction the liquid out. Overnight, the machine stopped being able to suction, due to the thickness of this liquid. So, John vomited all through the night and the nurse didn't do anything to fix the machine. That was such a horrible night for John and I was so upset when I heard of this. The next day they worked hard to manually remove the thick liquid with a syringe rather than using the suction machine. By Feb 23rd, mid-day, they felt they had gotten enough liquid out to do an endoscopy. They did the endoscopy and discovered the opening between his stomach and small intestines was a lot more obstructed than they thought. As a result, they will have to perform surgery in to open that area up. Before the endoscopy they removed his NG tube, but they will have to put it back in John since they found food in his stomach during the endoscopy. The NG tube has been the worst thing about this whole process for John.... Please pray for John, that the surgery will go well. 2-23-17
John in the ER, right after the did the CT scan and discovered they had to put in an NG tube. He was not happy when he discovered he'd have to have it in over night. Little did he know that he'd have to keep it in for almost 2 weeks.
We thought THIS was weird.
But then we saw this! They suctioned out of his stomach, a total of 8 of canisters of this dark liquid, over the duration of his stay; almost 10 liters. Doctor Todd, his surgeon, said it was the most he's ever seen come out of one person's stomach. His stomach enlarged to 10 times its normal size. We are so lucky we went into the ER when we did.
He hated that NG tube, and the only time it felt remotely comfortable for him, was when he held it, rather than pinning it to his gown. So he just sat there, holding it. It was so sad.
When the contents were too thick, the nurse had to manually suction the fluid with a 60ml syringe, rather than using the suction machine because it wasn't powerful enough.
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