Ninja Steak… Tales Of An Evasive Dinner

Anyone have Ninja Steak before? Well, In my previous post about New Years and the Holidays being over, I mentioned that I had a brief hospital stay on Boxing Day. Why? Well, the story is actually very similar to my clutzy stories about falling down the stairs or fighting with shower curtains, except this involves a piece of steak and a can of beer. Now, this IS funny. It makes me laugh and I Was incredibly embarrassed, however it is also serious… don’t feel bad if you laugh and certainly don’t feel bad if you feel the need to make fun of me… Because sometimes it seems like these things only happen to me. How can I possibly be a Ninja if I can’t walk without falling, shower without fighting the shower curtain, get out of bed without fighting with Edwardo (who has sadly recently been put to rest) or now.. eat without food getting lodged in my esophagus? Because people of the world, I am a Ninja despite these things… so stop questioning my Ninjaness and just read ahead…

It was December 25th at 8pm. Both the kiddies had been put into their beds to go to sleep after a long, exciting Christmas day and instead of making Christmas dinner Husband/Daddy and I decided to make ourselves our own little Surf N Turf, because after all we had already gone against the grain and didn’t visit anyone that day so why bother with the traditional turkey!? Husband/Daddy decided he was going to make us dinner. It smelled amazing the entire time it was cooking and I couldn’t wait to enjoy a great dinner and a beer. Yum!

We sat down for dinner, we decided to eat in front of the TV again, going against the grain since the kids were in bed… they didn’t have to know! I cut into that succulent steak… popped a bite in my mouth and chewed. I decided to follow my bite with a gulp of beer… immediately following my gulp of beer it decided to come back up… foaming through my mouth and nose all over the floor as I ran to the kitchen. What the heck was happening!? I felt like something was stuck in my esophagus and along with saliva and beer a little bit of steak came out into the sink… I took a gulp of water trying to force the food down and instead ended up with water ejecting itself through my nose and mouth… FANTASTIC. I tried to stretch and still couldn’t get the food down.

Now, this has happened once before with pasta and I had gone to the hospital and within 30 minuets of waiting in emergency with a trillion sick people the food dislodged itself and I ended up just going home. So, instead of waking up the kids and getting husband to drive me to the hospital I decided to wait until morning to see if it would fix itself.

That steak was so stuck that I couldn’t even swallow my own saliva, in fact it would just collect above the steak in my esophagus and eventually come back out of my mouth into the sink… all of it. I tried several different tactics that night… I tried pop… which just bubbled back up through my mouth and nose. I tried forcing myself to throw up to see if the pressure from the other end would allow it to come up… but all that happened was me almost pooping myself from the pressure of trying to throw up – SO not something I wanted to happen so I scratched THAT method right away. I spent the rest of the night sitting upright in bed running to the bathroom every so often to spit out my saliva. When morning came and the kids woke up I made the husband drive me to the hospital.

When I walked into the emergency room it was EMPTY! Shocker! It’s usually PACKED yet I was the only person there, thank goodness. They took me right away. They hooked me up to an IV and started giving me medications to soften my esophagus to let it relax enough for the steak to go down. The first medication didn’t work so they tried it again 20 mins later… and again… It didn’t work.. I kept thinking “Hey Ninja Mommers, Who’s the Ninja Now!? You have been evaded by NINJA STEAK” it was humbling. They tried the second medication… twice… nothing still. SO, it was time to send in the surgeon..  WAIT BACK UP DOCTOR… SURGEON!? NO NO NO, WHAT? When I think surgeon I immediately think… “Pass the scalpel” and almost passed out. The Doctor assured me that there was no major surgery involved and left the room.

So, the surgeon comes in, speaks to me about what they are about to do. Which involved a “Conscious Sedative”, a little tube with a camera on it, oxygen, a bite guard and a machine that allows you to see where that tube is going. Being as I was consciously sedated I do not remember a whole lot passed seeing the damned piece of steak and hearing the doctors say “Wow that IS stuck in there pretty good” and then they were finished. YAY! I have to admit, I DO NOT like medication but any apprehensions I had about being “consciously sedated” flew out the window as I relaxed into a calm abyss… and sent some pretty indecipherable text messages after.

After finishing the procedure and I was a little more coherent, I spoke to the surgeon, who then informed me that my esophagus was ulcerated due to excess stomach acid and blah blah, leading him to believe and diagnose me with GERD. (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) because I had all the symptoms… Yahoo! Anyways, he gave me a medication to slow my production of stomach acid and booked me another scope on January 31st to make sure everything is ok and to help stretch out my esophagus as it has gotten smaller due to scar tissue.

So, I guess this is what happens when you have GERD and don’t get it taken care of until you HAVE to. That’s me… leaving things until they are bad for myself yet worrying when Little Man or Baby Girl have a runny nose.