Endoscopy

Finally, after almost three gruelling weeks of waiting and vomiting, it was mum's turn to conduct a pain-free endoscopy. This period has been hellish, filled with daily and nightly gagging, coughing, vomiting and bending over the toilet bowl. How I have slept so badly at nigh for fear she will throw up in the middle of the night and choke... How I have been worried sick and begun to cry from seeing mum so terribly sick... what hurts most of all is hearing mum complain of hunger, and not being, not daring, able to give her any food to relieve her constant hunger... What pains me is seeing her loose so much weight, under my watch...

Today, just before heading to the hospital for the scheduled appointee, mum lay in her bed and whispered so quietly, for she has so little energy left, "I have neglected my health and waited too long..." One reason was because she did not want to go through five minutes max of intrusive internal examination of her bowls. The other reason, which made me livid when I found out as mum spoke to my aunt (mum's brother's wife) was that she did not want to return to hospital to stay because she was afraid stadium in hospital would cause me too much tiredness... As if staying at home and seeing her vomit again and again was so much less tiring or painful to experience!

They gave mum a light dose of anaesthesia so she would not feel much during the procedure. I was asked to leave the room, but on two occasions when the assistant entered and left the room I could see a live image of the procedure on a large LCD screen. One split second image was (what I think is) of the oesophagus, which looked relatively healthy. The next image a few minutes later was of a cave-like structure, which was a very gray and bloody looking in colour. There was this lump-like structure, very unhealthy and deadly looking. That's just the impression i had when i saw it. I had no idea what it was I was looking at as I peeked through the door, but I somehow had a premonition that it was something awful. I just had that..."gut" feeling.