Oops, that didn’t go to plan…

Yesterday (Tuesday 3rd) I visited a cafe with my parents and son. My intention was to remain on fluids 48 hours after my endoscopy I had on Monday. However, they ran out of soup!

I saw on the menu a jacket potato with tuna mayo. As I have had successfully eaten that before I thought why not.

My first mouthful I chewed and swallowed but similar to other times I knew something was stuck at the join between my remaining oesophagus and new stomach.

I can usually clear any blockages with gulps of water or coughing it up. But no, nothing was budging it. I soon realised I wasn’t able to consume any fluids, and was just throwing it back up again. Breathing unaffected, that’s a separate pipe!

I got home and called the clinical nurse team who then spoke to my surgeon. Told me to come to A&E at Guildford and a consultant would see me. That was at 6pm.

They were able to get me in to operating theatre immediately and gave me a full general anaesthetic.

An hour later, about 9pm, I was awake and in recovery. The surgeon came and saw me and said it was a piece of potato, and it looked like the lump that blocked my food hole was “uncooked” and remained hard, hence no flushing or breaking down of the potato.

As I had general, I had to stay in overnight.

This morning I’m back to normal. On free fluids for 48 hours then back to puree for a few days and then return to soft foods.

Lesson learned: stay away from uncooked potato and listen to your surgeon, when he said stay on clear fluids for 48 hours he meant 48 hours and not 24!!!

You can only imagine what my live in nurse (aka wife) had to say about it 😜