For Spring Break this year, I opted for a week in Anchorage. A stay-cation, rather than a vacation, if you will.
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| Borrowed this photo from the Internet. |
No islands in the Caribbean with tropical breezes and sharks slipping through the clear waters, no vast savannahs with African birds of every color and prowling big cat predators, no penguins of the Southern Ocean surrounded by their pink poo, where hurricane-force winds rage. No scenic views, either because my view would be the rooftops of various hospital buildings.
Instead, I chose—somewhat involuntarily—the city where I grew up, graduated high school, and worked in several professions. No single career choice for me, either. I began in print journalism, then radio, then as a legal secretary. I doffed it all to be a breakfast cook at a ski resort 35 miles from Anchorage, where I felt more at home surrounded by mountains and forests and black bears.
Some people think I’ve had a varied career; I think I had a short attention span.
I went on to many other jobs, but that’s a story for another occasion. I've gone astray. Today we’re talking about my Stay-cation in Anchorage.
Up in the second paragraph, I mentioned it was “somewhat involuntary.” Put the emphasis on involuntary. I would never have done this t had it not been necessary
I’ll tell you about it because I want it to serve as warning for the rest of you who have similar symptoms, like when you think you have heartburn and sit around patting your chest with your fist.
I dealt with GERD, for decades, a condition in which stomach acid bubbles up into the esophagus. The esophagus becomes very unhappy and lets you know about it.
Google provides a better description:
This is a chronic disease that occurs when stomach acid or bile flows into the food pipe [esophagus] and irritates the lining. Acid reflux and heartburn more than twice a week may indicate GERD.
Symptoms include burning pain in the chest that usually occurs after eating and worsens when lying down.
Relief from lifestyle changes and over-the-counter medications is usually temporary. Stronger medication may be needed.
Pay attention especially to the last part where it describes hiatal hernia.
Always the contrarian, my GERD pain transmitted to my spinal area and was so strong that when it first began occurring, I thought I was having a heart attack. It was scary. Little did I know then what scary could be.
Left untreated, the stomach acid can erode the lining of the esophagus, leading to a pre-cancerous condition called Barrett’s Esophagus. That got my attention.
I detected (don’t you love self-diagnosis?) that it happened when I overate. I bought Costco-sized bottles of Tums and tried not to overeat. “Overeating” can be as drastic as eating a huge juicy steak with all the trimmings, or as simple as half of a Costco hot dog. It varies.
So, the Tums accompanied me for a couple decades wherever I went and then one day in Anchorage, things turned ominous.
After two bites of a delicious hamburger at the Arctic Roadrunner, I was literally foaming at the mouth. I could eat no more, certainly didn’t want to, and soaked napkin after napkin with foamy saliva. I could not stop it. It was awful. And embarrassing.
I employed my usual method of medical treatment: ignore it and it will go away.
And I went on like that for another couple decades, trying not to over-fill my stomach, and occasionally failing as the “signal” that I was full was slow.
Until two years ago. That’s when the fan got plastered with globs of unpleasant stuff, so to speak.
Next: Pain transference
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