| Hello to all, I visited with the surgeon who will preform the surgery on me related to my throat problem. He explained that I have a very rare disease probably caused by some kind of virus. He said that the disease effects everyone- all ages from infants to elderly, men and women, every nationality. World wide about 1 in 100,000 people are effected. People come from all over the world to have this group at USC Medical operate on them as that is all they do. But, I still need one more test before he can know exactly what he needs to do. I have to back on Thursday for the test which measures muscle pressure in the throat down through the entire stomach area. I have to be put to sleep while the instruments are put inside then I will wake up and the testing will begin as I need to do things during the test. The doctor said this will not be much fun at all but there is simply no other way to do it. Once the tests are over a computer constructs the inside of me in a 3 dim. picture along with the pressure levels of the tissue all along the way. This is needed as he has to disconnect the existing connection between the throat and stomach and reconstruct it in another stomach location. I may be in the hospital from 2 days to 7 days depending how complex this procedure turns out to be. The good thing is that the surgery is almost 100% successful and I will return to about 80% as good as new. He said he has never seen a repeat of the disease in anyone they have operated on. So our road trip is postponed about a week then off we go. The surgery is scheduled for the 29th of August as that was the first available surgery day they had. Ok with me......... I'll keep you up to date after the test on Thursday. ..................... Frank B. |