The line is from a movie that came out back in 1980 called The Elephant Man. It was a very powerful black and white movie that was filled with shocking moments and at times was so very sad to see how cruel mankind can be to another human being. In the film, actor John Hurt played a severely deformed man in 19th century London. One of his sufferings he went through was he had to keep his head propped up to sleep or the weight of his skull would shut off his windpipe and cause certain death. The final scene in the movie was one night imitating one of his sketches on the wall — a sleeping child — he finally lies down completely on his bed and dies, consoled by a vision of his mother; a very powerful moment to a very powerful movie.
I joke around a lot about a condition I deal with on a daily basis, sometimes referring it to the movie, something I do and probably should not do, but its a frustration condition I have and why not try to find some humor in it? I knwo those who witness me in certain conditions giggle about it all.
I have to sleep that way, head propped up, sometimes almost to a full sitting posture, as was the case last evening. Some nights are better than others, and a few were like last night, full of frustration, and anger, and in many ways, it seems I am paying back retribution of sorts for my past doings. It has to be some form of punishment for sure.
How did all this happen? What are the symptoms? Why cant it be fixed?
Good questions, and for the answers I guess I have to go back to when I was younger, much younger and very much naive about controlling emotions and emotional stress. The emotions are not anger based but I think they may be just an overload of what is happening around me. I take way too much depth on whats happening at any given moment and for some reason worry, or at least I use to, way to much about what is going on in and around my world. Work, play, it all fit in to a category of stress I induced on myself. And I didn’t do anything to reduce it till it became a physical problem back in the mid 90′s.
The first symptoms I had was I had to watch how I ate and what I ate because all of a sudden I was beginning to easily choke on the least amount of food. The food was for some reason unbeknownced to me was getting stopped on its way into my stomach, and when there is a blockage, eventually it backs up and what spills over, did so into my lungs, and shear panic evolves in a trip somewhere to expunge the contents. I know it sounds gross but I was finding it harder and harder to eat without drinking way too much liquid trying to wash it down.
I finally broke down and went to a doctor to get my first complete physical since the early 70′s when I was in the Air Force. After countless moments at the doctor’s office getting severely reprimanded for not taking care of my self on a more regular basis it was determined, after I was lit up with some form of nuclear medicine on a big screen TV monitor, I had a restricted esophagus at the entrance to my stomach, so restricted a small baby aspri was barely abler to pass through. So what caused all this doc? Stress, panic attacks, (I have no idea what they are), and just a very unusual life style. (upper teen and post teen children).
So what do we do? We have to make an appointment to go see a gastroenterologists. Whoopee!!!!!
Now If I remember right the fear of God was, at that moment, instilled into my weak assed mind about sticking something down my throat; something that was not created by God, rather created by some underpaid workman in a medical production laboratory. Top it off, my fears would also carry me to far away images about connecting some unholy video unit to the end of what ever they had planned on sticking down there to survey the damage, record it and all the while let me see why my life was all of a sudden becoming miserable by the moment.
One thing the facts did to me that day was make me lose my appetite. In fact I promised to my doctor if we could just forget the whole thing I promise I would never eat again and that should solve my swallowing problem. To top if off I have a deviated septum on the left side of my nose which severely restricts air flow, so breathing through my nose it not that easy during relaxed times, and with a TV camera shoved down my throat, now I am falling deeper into a state of fear by suffocating to death during the initial showing of my TV debut.
So over the next few days of pure hell waiting for the appointment, I am cursed with all kinds of thoughts of ways to get around this meeting with the camera dude or even possibly going back to my drug expermental days of the 70′s thinking maybe there is a drug that will just be a miracle cure for me; no such luck.
Do you remember in the 80′s when the then President Regan had stomach problems and had to be hospitalized? The one image I remember seeing was him waving from his hospital window with wife Nancy standing beside him. I will get back to that image a little later.
The day of the appointment came and it was now or never to make my escape some how. I just ran out of options. Short of dying, I was about to have my first of four upper endoscopy examinations. They put me in a holding cell with curtains and told me to remove my shirt and shoes. I guess they let me keep my pants on in case I soiled my self at the sight of the camera dude with a crap eating grin on his face. I was fixed up with an IV by a cute little nurse that actually helped me calm down a bit by telling me they had never really lost a camera since she was working there. Her attempt at slight humor went unnoticed as I figured she was just being honest. I asked what the IV was for and she grinned and told me it was for the drugs the doctor would give me prior to the examination to calm me down and temporarily cause amnesia. I thought they called that “Date Rape”, I whispered to her but now she didnt seem so amused. Maybe if my mind would ease up a bit, it may not be so bad after all?
I was wheeled into the exam room which was so very evident that this was to be the last room I was going to see alive. It was small and very dark. Very few lights were lit and what was noticeable was a TV monitor and the image on it was a horrifying sight of what had to be the grossest thing I had ever seen. Still no doctor though. The attending nurse now was different and she had me lay on my side facing the monitor. I didn’t want to look at it. The image was fuzzy looking, little strands of something sticking up, curling upwards and then hanging all over the place; different colors, just horrible looking. I knew I was looking at the image of a previous scared individual that didn’t make it, they couldn’t have with that mess inside of them. And then I saw it; hanging on one of those hanging devices that held enema bottles when we were kids, the camera thingy!!! It was long and black and it looked like about the size of my fingers, and it had this light emitting from the end of it, a focused light, shooting downward, like a spot light, shooting downward towards the floor, I mean the carpet. I looked at the camera, then the monitor, then back at the camera, then the floor, then back to the monitor and then it hit me the image on the monitor was a very well defined close up of the carpeting in the exam office. I thought to my self how sadistic and cruel these people are, scaring the crap out of people who about to go through all kinds of hell with a stupid picture of the carpeting on the monitor. Hell I knew all along it was carpeting, they wasn’t fooling my ass.
In walked the doctor and after a few exchanges trying to make me feel better and more at ease the nurse injected something in the IV. Moments later I realized I was back in the holding cell area looking around to see where my nurse had gone to. She entered shortly asking how I was doing and I asked why they had not done the procedure yet and why I was back in here with her. She said the exam was over and to get dressed and she would take me to see the doctor for the post exam discussion. I was sure they had found a last minute cure to my condition and decided against doing the camera thing and got dressed and waited. I felt ok, maybe a little tired but relieved that the scare for now was over with. Shortly I was taken into a small office filled with pictures all over the walls of a doctor shaking hands and smiling and just generally having a good time. Typical doctors personal office and then I became totally aware this doctor was shaking hands with President Regan. Multiple images of him socializing with the president and his family. I was impressed. I knew now why they decided not to give me the procedure. Either this doctor was a genius and found the miracle cure or, i was so outclassed by him he decided to send me to another clinic; the latter being the most viable solution to the problem at hand.
Also on the wall I noticed a clock and the realization again hit me, I had just lost almost an hour of my life to something. I did not even have the time for this to completely compute when the doctor walked in asking me how I was doing. After a few moments of sheer fright once again he went on to explain the exam went fine and he discovered some very defined damage on the flapper thing that is located at the junction of where my esophagus meets my stomach. He also told me he stretched my esophagus out quite nicely and I was about to find out what eating was all about without the fear of choking again. He also showed me a few disgusting images of what stress does to a mans stomach entrance, and one image showing the flapper that looked about half burned off. He explained the acid was eating it away and the restricting of the esophagus was a reflex action that became permanent, sort of and that’s why he had to stretch it back out. He also explained to me that I may have to be on medications to keep the level of the acidity down in my stomach from then on. After hearing that we may have to do all this again in the future a few more times and there were surgery options we could discuss at a later date, I left smiling like a new born baby about to get his first taste of moms milk.
As I walked out of his office we shook hands just like Regan did and without hesitating he completely blew the wind out of my sail by telling me we also needed to schedule a lower endoscopy. Trying to figure out what he was talking about, I visioned he had to stick the camera down further in my stomach and then I almost fainted when I realized he wasn’t talking about sticking a camera down my throat, in fact the orfice this camera was to invade was……much lower than my throat, way much lower.
With hands shaking violently, I paid my copay and went to the elevator and headed down to the lobby with horrible thoughts once again of not necessarily how they were going to do it but rather, what difference the cameras were, and if they were not different, who the hell was in charge of keeping the upper cameras separated from the lower ones??
Oh My God here we go again…….
I know what you’re asking. What does all this have to do with me having to sleep in an upright position, or at least elevated more than just a few inches. Well since the mid 90′s I have managed to burn the rest of the flapper completely off, meaning my stomach contents can back up if gravity deems it so. And the more acidic those contents are, the more hell I can go through in a moment of sheer panic once again awaking with a mouthful of acid going into my lungs. So sleeping elevated is not just a random thing it is mandatory.
And last evening I ate the most wonderful shrimp nachos, smothered with fresh jalapenos and cheese sauce.
And last nights sleep also confirmed those were probably my last jalapenos I will ever get to eat.
And yes the colonoscopy was performed. And the brilliant doctor also decided to do an upper endoscopy again on me the same exam. That will be another entry here but I will never forget the panic I went through searching for the second camera device before being drugged into a state of not caring where they stuck whatever camera they wanted to first second or last or even at the same time…….
