Positively Glorious!

… check. Throttle ignition lock? Check. And we’re descending into Despair in 4… 3… 2…

This is one of those things that sucks to write about, not because it’s hard to write but because the very act of writing it– while it helps me to formulate my thoughts and feelings– proves that it’s true.

And I really really wish that none of this was true.

There’s an onion that I’m peeling in life, lately, with layers upon layers of complicated realities. All of those realities involve a level of despair that I have carried with me for my entire adult life.

This is one of those damn “series” posts, because it’s just too much to write about at once.

Your Esophagus May Kill You

The facts are this: When I was 25, I was diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus. It’s a condition that’s caused by stomach acid rising into your throat and eating away at your esophagus until it becomes something closely resembling poorly cooked hamburger meat. This is bad because your esophagus is supposed to very closely resemble completely uncooked hamburger meat.

You see, as it turns out, cooking your internal organs is not at all A Good Thing™– and acid will cook the shit out of you.

I’m in my 20s and have been having problems with heartburn for a while. So I talk to people about it and they say “Suck it up.” This is how the military works, by the way: “You’re young, you’re supposed to be tough, so quit you bitchin and get to work!” And these aren’t friends I’m talking to. They are medical professionals. The corpsman on my submarine basically told me to shut up for 2+ years. He “prescribed” tums. Thanks for the help.

So, fast forward a few years and I’m 25, the corpsman on my submarine gets transferred¹ and the new corpsman wants to meet with everyone to get acquainted. We have to do the meetings quick because in 2 days we’re going on a 6-month deployment. So I sit down that day and tell him what’s going on.

He freaked out.

Seriously, too. He pulled me off the boat that day, and scheduled me for an emergency endoscopy the next day. He did this because I “might have Barrett’s Esophagus and that leads to cancer.”

This will become a reoccurring phrase in my life.

Suddenly “suck it up and drive on” has turned into a surgeon telling me that my esophagus looks like that of a 50 year old.

A 50 year old!

He’s never seen Barrett’s Esophagus in such bad shape in someone my age, and we need to take drastic steps. Four days later, the boat is gone, and I’m in surgery. Seriously. Fucking surgery! As in “cut open my stomach and move shit around” surgery.

Fuck. Me.

They wrapped the top of my stomach around my esophagus to try to close it off.

This is something that will never feel quite comfortable. For the rest of my life, there’ll be a persistent “tugging” inside my chest which I can only assume is my stomach saying:

“Hey, why the fuck am I wrapped around this esophagus?!”

It’s either that, or it’s my esophagus saying

“Get the fuck off me, stomach!”

I can’t really figure out which. Maybe it’s both.

There’s also the persistent need to return to have a follow-up endoscopy every 2 years.

Yes, every two years I get to return to our friendly VA hospital– home of our honored veterans who walk around moaning with a complete lack of hope for their future² — and have a camera shoved down my throat to make sure that my esophagus is not so mad at my stomach that it creates a cancer large enough to necessitate the removal of the whole shebang.

Basically, every two years, I am reminded that there’s something seriously wrong with me.

Recently, I’ve had another one. This time it’s because I’ve been feeling really bad heartburn again, and actually sometimes trouble swallowing. Not A Good Thing™ by any stretch of the imagination.

I’m worried. More than that, I’m really scared. Over the past two months or so the background noise of my life has risen from a small persistent whine to a mind-bending screech that’s drowning out my best attempts to live a normal life.

The purpose of writing all of this is to help me deal with the feelings I have from this last endoscopy. But first, I actually need to come to grips with what it’s like to deal with background noise.

And I’ve got a lot of background noise.

1. forcibly discharged, actually, he was a fucking drug addict. Thanks for the help. [↩]
2. nice place, that. Glad we appreciate our vets [↩]