Easter

I pray you all had a great Easter weekend, and were able to enjoy it with friends and family.  I had a rather rough couple of days over the weekend.

Warning:  Graphic description following!!

Thursday morning my wife took me to the ER because I was vomiting blood.   It’s really tough being sick when you have compromised breathing.  They immediately gave me an IV to quell my nausea (thankfully it worked!) and they began a series of lab tests.  The ER doctor on duty came in and quizzed me about my daily meds, and when he learned I had been taking Meloxicam for several years, he said “Ah, Meloxicam is known to cause bleeding; it may have caught up with you.”

As it turned out, he called it.

I was admitted, and an EGD (which is the acronym for Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, or a scope/camera down the esophagus) Friday.  They also did a complete ultrasound history of the abdomen.

The EGD found 5 stomach ulcers, three small, two larger, the largest of which was the bleeder.  Amazingly, they can stop bleeding without intervention, and this one did, so the laser cauterization was not done.  BUT the GI doctor said he had no doubt those ulcers were caused by medication (in my case the Meloxicam).

As a result of the ultrasound procedure, they also found an “aneurysmal dilation” on the abdominal aorta.  Yep,  small aneurysm.  (Doesn’t surprise me that aorta is getting thin, it’s old!! )   Will find out this week what, if anything, they want to do about that.

As far as the ulcers go, a 60-day regimen of Puretonix, and another scope (whoopee) to check that the ulcers are healing.

But here’s the neat thing about all this:  Had none of this happened, had I not been in the hospital, I would not have laid there in my hospital bed and listened to one of my brothers witness to a young nurse and encourage her to seek Christ.

But I did.

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  –Romans 8