Last week Belinda got food stuck in her esophagus. It happens sometimes, but this was a particularly bad one. She’d gotten a hot dog from Sonic (as an 18 year old does sometimes), even though bread can be difficult. So it got stuck. She got some of it out but not the stuck part. And it hurt. It hurt her chest and gave her the feeling like her “ribs are being opened up.” She couldn’t drink water or anything – it all came back up. She called me and we talked through some stuff but nothing worked. She couldn’t study; she couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to go to the emergency room. I wasn’t sure if she should, anyway, because I don’t think just anyone should be poking around in her esophagus, you know?

She finally got a little rest and the next day it was still stuck. She felt even worse. She ended up missing some classes and I think she did the ones virtually that allowed it. She hates to miss class! I reached out to Children’s National and they wanted her to not go to the emergency room if she could stand it. Later that day she started feeling dizzy and she said she blacked out except for a tiny spot in the center of her vision. Of course, she did not tell me that until the next day, after she had finally gotten it down and gotten to eat again, and things were better.

This morning in church we prayed for her. The pastor prayed for absolute healing, and that she wouldn’t ever have to deal with this again, for the rest of her life. That would be very wonderful.

We are going to schedule a virtual follow up with Children’s National. We are going to do it during Spring Break so she and I can be together for the zoom call.

We also had appointments tomorrow with the Ehlers-Danlos doctor in Tulsa, but we rescheduled those for June, again so it will be during a break. We need to get those on a June-December schedule (they’re six month visits).

I don’t know how to help from here, which is hard. I told her to please try to always eat something that will go down before eating something dicey, like a hot dog. I told her to keep some yogurt or something on hand just in case. The dizzy and blacking out part is so very not okay!

I really want to think of some things I can send with her after spring break that will help. I’m not sure what yet. Hopefully it will come to me.