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Tag: pediatrics

Heart Stopping with Reverse Pressure

by Becca on July 23, 2019

right after I got the adenosine to stop and restart my heart

My pediatric cardiologist was extremely concerned about me by the time I was thirteen. He stayed in close contact with Dr. Kaye, my adolescent medicine doctor. When I was lying down on that crinkly white paper on the exam table, my heart rate was usually about 120. Sitting up it was usually about 135, and when I stood up, it was in the 150s.  Neither Dr. Kaye or Dr. Oster, the cardiologist, ever said anything about those numbers being abnormal, but I read it right off their faces.

After they left the room I looked it up on my phone. A normal heart rate for a teenager is 60 to 100 beats per minute, and it shouldn’t fluctuate like that with changes of position.

Dr. Oster said they wanted to run a bunch of tests on my heart shortly before my fourteenth birthday. I was not surprised.

The EKGs and … Find Out What Happens Next

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Gastroparesis: My Definitive Diagnosis

by Becca on June 22, 2019

An image of myself going through the CT scanner as part of extensive testing for gastropareisis

The whole genre of my healthcare had changed when I first woke up, swathed in warm blankets after my emergency surgery to have 2.5 inches of dead bowel removed. It wouldn’t be until almost a week later, after all of the testing was complete, that I would find out I had a disease called gastroparesis. The NG feeding tube formula they had been pumping me up with had congealed inside me forming a hardened mass called a bezoar. This in turn had caused a bowel obstruction. After four days of being ignored while I was supposedly being “treated” for an “eating disorder” in the children’s inpatient psychiatric unit, the obstruction had finally just ruptured causing my surgical emergency and the death of that 2.5 inches of bowel.

At ten years old I weighed 38 pounds. For the last two years, everyone had passed me off as a psych case. At … Find Out What Happens Next

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The Monster Has a Name: Gastroparesis

by Becca on March 20, 2019

The tube feeding bag and pump I used when I first began my battle with the monster of gastroparesis

My very first symptoms started when I was eight and couldn’t stay standing up through the whole prayer service at my Orthodox Jewish Day School every morning. Also that year, I started having trouble with holding down food and drink. Between ages eight and ten the issues just intensified and turned into a monster that threatened to tear my whole family apart, including the lives of my two little brothers, Michael and Jonathan (names altered for privacy issues) who were having their own issues that got shoved to the back burners because my issues were life-threatening and there’s were just life-altering. My GI issues were so intense by the time I passed out in an elevator at age ten that I hadn’t even been able to hold down any food or drinks at all. Not even sips of Gatorade.

I had my first hospitalization after passing out in that elevator. … Find Out What Happens Next

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