Gastric Antral Vascular Ectasia or Watermelon Stomach
So I won't paste any photos of it here, because it is a bit yukky to look at the images that come up when you do a google image search!!
4 weeks ago on the 11th April I underwent a gastroscopy to determine if I had GAVE or watermelon stomach again.
I arrived at the local hospital at 12:30 having fasted since 7am that morning. At approximately 1pm they checked my blood pressure and blood glucose levels and discovered both were a tad lower than was expected!!
I was last on the surgery list, but got bumped to 3rd and the poor woman who had just been wheeled out to have her surgery was bought back so that I could be rushed into her spot. I mouthed sorry to her as we passed, so hopefully she was ok!!
So i arrived down into the small holding room near the surgery only to hear that the surgeon was not happy to conduct the treatment, the gastroscope yes but not the APC as he had only done 1 or 2 of them.
By the way, after they knocked me out and placed the gastroscope down, if they discovered that I did indeed have GAVE then they would treat me by effectively cauterizing the wound. This is called a APC - or Argon Plasma Coagulation. So the more experience the better as far as I'm concerned, and I had no problems with him calling it like that.
One small problem the Gastroenterologist was in a meeting and not expected at the hospital until about 3 - 3:30 pm. So I was placed in recovery to wait. By now it was 1:30pm, so I had a little bit of a wait. They kindly sent up for my glasses and book from my locker and I kept busy reading my book.
At 3pm I got the call and went off to have the procedure. When I got back to my room they advised that I had GAVE and had been treated with the APC and needed to return to repeat the procedure in 4 weeks time.
So yesterday the 9/5/2018 I repeated the process. Thankfully I was put at the top of the afternoon surgery list. I was wheeled into surgery at 1pm and was home by 3pm. Today is a recovery day, with alot of little naps in between.
Tomorrow I am back at work, but will be taking it easy.
When I was first diagnosed with GAVE it was 2007 and I ended up in emergency when I woke with my face swollen and my heart pounding in my ears. That time I was transferred to a bigger hospital and kept for a week while they tried to work out what was wrong.
According to what I have read on the internet, it appears that it is linked to the Primary Billiary Cirrhosis and CREST.
I can only wait and see where this is going. Hopefully the trip is a long one with not too many hospital visits.
4 weeks ago on the 11th April I underwent a gastroscopy to determine if I had GAVE or watermelon stomach again.
I arrived at the local hospital at 12:30 having fasted since 7am that morning. At approximately 1pm they checked my blood pressure and blood glucose levels and discovered both were a tad lower than was expected!!
I was last on the surgery list, but got bumped to 3rd and the poor woman who had just been wheeled out to have her surgery was bought back so that I could be rushed into her spot. I mouthed sorry to her as we passed, so hopefully she was ok!!
So i arrived down into the small holding room near the surgery only to hear that the surgeon was not happy to conduct the treatment, the gastroscope yes but not the APC as he had only done 1 or 2 of them.
By the way, after they knocked me out and placed the gastroscope down, if they discovered that I did indeed have GAVE then they would treat me by effectively cauterizing the wound. This is called a APC - or Argon Plasma Coagulation. So the more experience the better as far as I'm concerned, and I had no problems with him calling it like that.
One small problem the Gastroenterologist was in a meeting and not expected at the hospital until about 3 - 3:30 pm. So I was placed in recovery to wait. By now it was 1:30pm, so I had a little bit of a wait. They kindly sent up for my glasses and book from my locker and I kept busy reading my book.
At 3pm I got the call and went off to have the procedure. When I got back to my room they advised that I had GAVE and had been treated with the APC and needed to return to repeat the procedure in 4 weeks time.
So yesterday the 9/5/2018 I repeated the process. Thankfully I was put at the top of the afternoon surgery list. I was wheeled into surgery at 1pm and was home by 3pm. Today is a recovery day, with alot of little naps in between.
Tomorrow I am back at work, but will be taking it easy.
When I was first diagnosed with GAVE it was 2007 and I ended up in emergency when I woke with my face swollen and my heart pounding in my ears. That time I was transferred to a bigger hospital and kept for a week while they tried to work out what was wrong.
According to what I have read on the internet, it appears that it is linked to the Primary Billiary Cirrhosis and CREST.
I can only wait and see where this is going. Hopefully the trip is a long one with not too many hospital visits.
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