Staving off Obstruction in Paris

Yesterday we walked through the open market in he Latin Quarter, ate lunch at a Vietnamese sidewalk cafe, toured the crypt at the Parthenon, visited the church of Saint Sulpice, enjoyed the expansive gardens at Luxembourg square, tried to see the catacombs (but the line was so long, we couldn't get in before closing), took in the Paris Mideivel Museum, explored the immense cemetery in the center of Paris, and viewed Paris from 59 stories up, on top of the Montparnasse building. Whew! It was great!

By the end of the day, we were pretty hammered. So we came back to the apartment and had take-away kebab from a place down the street for dinner while we relaxed with our feet up.

My gut was relatively calm through the day. I sort of babied it -- drank lots of water, chose simple, low-fat foods. That doesn't always make enough difference. But I was grateful for the blessing of it. Then, come the end of the day, I was more exhausted than I thought I was. I felt it when I tried to go to sleep for the night.

Generally, when I'm on lots of Prednisone, as I am now, sleep is rare. So I've just been taking 1/2 to 1 Zolpidem (Ambien) at night so I can sleep. But it also caries its own side effects. So last night, I thought I'd try to sleep without it. After laying there for a couple of hours, though, It became clear that sleep wasn't on its way. In fact other issues started to surface. That familiar, biting, intense pain in my right-upper quadrant that generally means a small bowel obstruction is forming started up. At first it was subtle, as usual, and I tried to ignore it. After all, every other part of my body was achy. Why shouldn't that also hurt?

I'd been thirsty all day, too. But that's not surprising, given we walked who-knows-how-many miles. But once I'd re-hydrated and lay down for the night, I'd expect that to abate. It intensified instead. Sigh

So, I slid my bags full of pills (two gallon-sized ziploc bags, if you can believe that!) out of the suit case under my bed and popped 40 mg of Prednisone to complement the 30 mg I took yesterday morning. That should quell it. I've got other symptom-control meds (liquid Lortab, bisocodyl sodium laxative, loperamide antidiarrheal, ondanstetron/Zofran) I'll take with me today and hope for the best. I don't want to miss anything! And thankfully, I was lying awake to notice it coming on. The pain is gone again this morning, and my bowels moved in a relatively normal way this morning.

Fingers crossed and lots of prayers!

Trying to be normal in Paris,

Beth :-)