Tequila and Success

After our fruitless sojourn downtown on Wednesday there was nothing to do but wait for the appointment today. So we went to the country club last night for tequila night. I didn't know there were so many kinds and so many rules about the plant used to make tequila! I had six different SMALL drinks plus decaf coffee with 1921 Tequila cream. They had Mexican food to go with it. They must have been pouring lightly because I had absolutely no effects. It was a good time and we enjoyed being with friends.

Today we gave it the old college try (third times a charm) and headed back down to Baylor Clinic. This time we were successful. Ted was taken back about 2:30 and the procedure takes less than a half hour. I was able to speak with the anesthesiologist and told her of all his tribulations while under (coughing, waking up, pulling on the hose, aspirating liquid). When she came out she said she had no problems but she gave him a second medicine because he was fighting them a little. This meant it would take longer for him to wake up. It was the end of the day and these people wanted to go home.

Dr. Ertan came to speak with me. He said 85% of the Barrett's that had been removed last time was covered over with healthy appearing squamous cells. These were brushed for cells to be examined under the microscope. Then he proceeded to touch "tongues and islands" of leftover Barrett's with the 90 degree ablator. Then he went back and did it a second time. He told me Ted was going to make a big contribution to his research. I took that to mean he is doing well and will get written up in a positive manner. I don't think he'd be excited about a failure of the treatment.

We finally got Ted into the car and he slept most of the way home. I stopped and got him a large vanilla Frosty at Wendy's. He is on liquids for 24 hours and a soft diet for a week. He said he could feel it moving down his esophagus but not as much as before and no pain this time.

Dr. Ertan did not do any biopsies because you can't have bleeding in there right now (thus the brushed cells). He said the 3-month endoscopy with biopsies will be the big thing. Since we got pushed back, three months will be the first of August now instead of the end of July. We need to leave here August 6 to keep our reservation at Topsail State Park at Santa Rosa Beach, FL. We'll try to do it early enough that we can get results before we leave just in case they need to do some follow-up.

So for now we can only keep praying that all will continue to go well. We are way ahead of the first pronouncement last November that the normal treatment for this was the removal of the esophagus. It appears that the gastroenterology community is now calling that a knee jerk reaction in light of the success with this Barrx treatment.