a diagnosis from Mayo

Hi All,
Thank you for the prayers and love that you have shared with Marcus and I these past (rather challenging) months.
On Friday afternoon, I was able to consult with the GI doc at Mayo again, and review the test results. The news was good, but certainly not ideal.

1. I have a condition called "visceral hypersensitivity". This falls under the spectrum of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and the doc says that I "carry a heavy burden of the disease". There are nerves in the gut (stomach, sm. intestine, lg. intestine) that help the digestion process, and mine are totally revved up, making my body freak out and vomit everytime there is a stimulus (food, water, etc.)

2. It is good news that I don't have gastroparesis or something else along those lines, as the prognosis for folks with that type of disease is much more difficult. I will not die from visceral hypersensitivity (clearly good news :))--I just might not feel that great right now.

3. The hope is that I will respond to medication which will target the nerve endings in my gut, calm them down, and I can return to a new "normal" life. The drugs they use for this include lyrica, remeron, and topomax. (I will not be taking lyrica, since I am allergic, but the new prayer is that I respond to one of the other drugs.) The doctor shared that she can not promise I will be asymptomatic, but the hope is that I can at least manage the disease better than I am now. The doc shared that it is sometimes difficult to manage the disease, but that there is a lot of research going on in this area, and the hope is that they will have better drugs in the next couple of years.

4. She also told me that it's not going to be an instant recovery. It's a lot of guesswork, while we try out different medications, doses, etc... and this is all going to take time. I'm not a huge fan of waiting to stop vomiting, but I trust that God's hand is in and through this. He clearly has said, "keep trusting me with it all"... and I'm doing my best.

5. In all honesty, I'm a little angry, a little frustrated, and mostly exhausted--but I know God can take all of that, and keep holding me in His hand. It was our prayer that God would use the trip to Mayo to heal me completely, and that I would return whole and healthy. It doesn't look like that was His plan, or at least not in His time. And so we wait, continuing to know that He can heal at any moment, but for some reason allowing me to go through this. We trust in His love, holding tight to His promises, and are doing our best to have hope in what is to come.

Hugs,
brelin