Happy Christmas

Sick of bland food over the last four weeks, I decided to do an experiment. As Kay, Darcy and I had been invited over to Darcy's parents in deepest Kent for Christmas, and they tend to cook vegetarian, we decided to have our traditional Christmas lunch a few days ago on Monday. I cooked the traditional meal only swapping turkey for chicken, as I did not want a lot of leftovers. I literally helped myself to a teaspoon of everything - chicken, carrots, parsnips, potato and one pig in its blanket - with lashings of gravy to convert it into a mush. The whole meal hardly covered a quarter of my dinner plate. I passed on the red cabbage and sprouts as I thought that was a step too far for an unhappy stomach. I then had a teaspoon of Christmas pudding with a little cream. If anything was going to upset me, THAT would. Thankfully and instinctively, I knew now was a right time to experiment and to my delight my stomach took the new food well and did not react, although admittedly I had dosed myself before and after with so much medication that it would have been a surprise if I had reacted. We even went for a short walk around the neighbourhood afterwards.

In the evening, we watched the DVD of It's a Wonderful Life. I have never seen it before. It was actually Greg's favourite film of all time and ever since I had known him, he had said how much he liked the film. He used to go on about it many times. We bought him the DVD as a Christmas present, the Christmas before he died. He was too past it and ill to watch it, even if he took it in that we had given it to him. It thus sat on the shelf unopened for the last 16 years. Now and again, Kay and I would be tempted to watch it, but always found excuses not to. Until we decided to watch it that evening.  Although incredibly dated - it was first shown in 1946 - in black and white and with some scenes that would not pass politically-correct muster nowadays - it was an incredibly sad yet uplifting film. We kept thinking of Greg all the way through and let's just say there were tears at the end.

We are all off to spend Christmas with Darcy's parents, so I hope my stomach can stand the test. It just leaves me to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year. I'll be back to my regular Sunday posts in the New Year!

Music, music, music

This last week has been a week of music events and, despite still feeling ill, I managed to go to all of them.

First last Monday was my choir's concert in a nearby parish church. Five of my friends had - for the first time bought tickets to come and see me. Kay and her husband Darcy were there too. In the run-up to it, I had of course been feeling unwell, but knew I could not really go sick for the concert, if seven people had gone to all the trouble to watch me. It did put a lot of pressure on me, as with my acid-burnt throat I could not reach the very top soprano notes and had to mime some of them. Of course afterwards there was mince pies and mulled wine - none of which I could partake in as I am still on a very bland diet. The concert however was a huge success. Here is my favourite song of all our repertoire that night.

Then on Thursday Kay, Darcy and I had tickets for the Royal Albert Hall to see Anna Lapwood, the celebrity organist. The concert was a mixture of traditional Christmas songs, carols and theme tunes from big films often shown at Christmas, such as ET, Interstellar, Love Actually or The Greatest Showman. Anna Lapwood was an amusing compere from her little Rapunzel turret (or organ loft to give it its proper name) high above the choir and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where she would then turn round to play the magnificent organ for all of the songs. Near the beginning she mentioned that there had been a lottery of ticket buyers and two names had won, both coincidentally German. She said she would call them up on stage to manage the audience at some point. In the second half of the concert,  Anna Lapwood announced the next song was A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman and she called upon the two Germans - a man and a woman - to come up on stage, as she wanted the audience to switch on the torches on their phones during the chorus to give a starry effect in the auditorium, so the Germans' job was to make sure the audience knew when their cue was. Suddenly, the audience erupted into cheers and screams midway through the song, as the German woman got down on one knee and proposed to the man. Both ended in an embrace while the audience went wild. Here is Anna Lapwood's own Instagram post about it.

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A post shared by Anna Lapwood | Organist (@annalapwoodorgan)

Then yesterday was our local church's adult nativity service. It is always packed out with a lot of people standing. It starts at 6.30 in the evening. We are given a programme and a candle as we enter the church. Once we are all seated, the church lights are all turned off and the nativity begins in darkness with Mary seated at the front. The Angel Gabriel enters with a candle while passages about the nativity begin to be read. The angel lights Mary's candle. As the nativity story unfolds, more candles are lit for Joseph, then the shepherds and three kings, as they enter the tableau at the front. The wise men and shepherds walk up and down the church aisles on their way  to the scene at the front, so it is is quite emotional as the "audience" are involved. Once the story had been enacted, warders come along the central aisle to light the candle of the first person sitting in each pew and that person then lights the candle of the person next to them, so that very soon the whole church is lit with candles. It symbolises that the world is full of light, so to speak. It is such a popular service that, as I say, you need to get there very early to ensure a seat, otherwise it is standing room only! It is also of course the church where Kay and Darcy married. It is always a special service for me as I was three months pregnant with Kay when I first ever went to it and ever since it has never ceased to be the only church service I go to all year.

More food for thought

I hinted in my last post that I had seen my gastric consultant and there was much to think about. To recap, I had a tumour removed from my stomach in 2016 and it has caused me various problems ever since.

The tumour shown in red above was removed but left the top of my stomach a thin pointed shape which now pokes through my diaphragm up into the oesophagus (foodpipe) and releases acid into my throat. This is called a hiatus hernia.

The second problem is that on the stomach wall, where the tumour was, runs a nerve which tells the pyloric sphincter at the bottom of the stomach to open. In removing the tumour, that nerve was damaged and now the pyloric sphincter doesn't open easily to let the food out into the duodenum and on to the intestines. So again, food and acid builds up in my stomach. The medical term is "delayed gastric emptying"  (DGE). When I have had to fast for a gastroscopy procedure, I have fasted for at least 18 hours and they have still found food in my stomach when they have put the camera down. Again this can cause the acid to back up into my throat.

My consultant surgeon has done many gastroscopies on me over the last nine years and attempted to stretch the pyloric valve to make it more prone to opening, as it is clearly tensely shut. It helps for a while but then I get another flare-up of acid reflux which makes me ill for about a week at time. The acid often comes up at night when I am asleep and I rear up choking.  On one occasion, the acid came up and went back down into my lungs, so I woke fighting for breath as if I were drowning. It was quite alarming, especially as I live on my own.

About 18 days ago, I had another flare-up which is still going on as I write - the longest bout I have ever had. My throat and stomach are inflamed and I have a cough as the throat is burnt. It means eating bland food such as eggs, custard, plain pasta and plain biscuits. Caffeine is also out of the question, so I am drinking plain water. I can only eat small quantities too as filling the stomach to full capacity just forces the acid up.

As luck would have it, I had an appointment with my consultant surgeon on 4 December. She is a lovely woman and we have a good rapport. She mulled over what I had told her and said that at the last gastroscopy in October, my stomach was more an hour-glass shape. She therefore would like to do a gastric emptying (DGE) study. Stupidly I thought this would involve filling in a form, but I was wrong. It involves eating something with a radioactive tracer and a gamma camera traces its progress through the stomach at intervals over several hours to see where the blockage is. If, as we think, the blockage is because the pyloric sphincter is the problem, then at the very least, she can inject botox into the sphincter to make it looser. If that fails, she can be more drastic and make a small cut in the sphincter to ease the tension a bit. Those options seem fairly risk free and I am going ahead with the botox option in January as well as the DGE study.

If the problem lies with the hour-glass shape of my stomach and food is getting trapped there, then she said she could cut the stomach ABOVE the narrow part, cut BELOW the narrow part, remove said narrow part and join the two other parts together again, thus making my stomach more a bag-shape. The risks to that are immense, obviously involving major surgery and I would not be able to eat normally for months until the stomach recovered. The thought of that petrifies me and I wonder whether that in itself would cause more complications and make things even worse. 

I did ask her whether a repair to the hiatus hernia would be a solution. She categorically refused to do that option. It would involve tightening the diaphragm so the stomach can't poke up through it. Tie it too tight and food might not be able to get down the oesophagus, so I would be forever on liquids! Tie it too tight and the pyloric sphincter below is still too lazy to open, there would be nowhere for the food contents to go - either upwards or downwards - causing my stomach to swell and explode !!!!!

So, I am opting first for the DGE study and the botox injection in January and see how I fare. The other options have been removed from my mind altogether, as they are the stuff of nightmares. Meanwhile I soldier on feeling pretty rotten at the moment and even wondering if I'll be better for Christmas. Not being able to eat normally and join in with the current pre-Christmas (often alcoholic) festivities is annoying as I have had to cancel meals out with friends and may have to cancel Christmas altogether. I can just picture myself curled up in bed in front of the TV on Christmas Day with a plate of scrambled egg and a bowl of custard for company. Bah humbug.

Christmas is coming

I'm not very much of a winter person as I hate the cold, damp weather and the long dark evenings which are not conducive to doing anything much except hunkering down and watching endless TV. Even when I do venture out in the evenings, such as to choir rehearsals, it is gone 10 o'clock, when I return to my car often with condensation on the windscreen or at worst frost. But there is one thing winter brings, which is not available any other time of year and that is Christmas.

I know shops tend to start Christmas as early as August and certainly by early November it is impossible to ignore that Christmas is on its way. I absolutely love Christmas and am like a child in my anticipation of it. By early November I have bought all my Christmas cards and started planning what to buy others for presents. By the end of November, I have written my annual Christmas letter both in English and German to pop into the cards when I send them. By the first week of December, my cards are written and sent off. A lot of presents I have already bought are wrapped up and ready. My food shopping lists are written and ordered into what can be bought in advance for the cupboard and nearer the time for the fridge.

Last but not least, I decorate the house at the beginning of December. That gives me a whole month to enjoy it.  As I mentioned in my last post, I am still not feeling great and a visit to my consultant on Thursday gave me much to think about - some of it quite frightening. There are various options which I won't get into now, as that is a subject for another post altogether, but let's just say this week has been a complete write-off with me cancelling gym sessions and other things, as I felt too rough. Despite feeling unwell, I was able to decorate the tree in little bursts with a sit-down in between. And here are the results. Bring it on.....