Missangelaks, Steelslady, Laineyz, and Jiffypop thanks for all the replies and inputs. So after all my STRESS and AGGRAVATION it was NOT Thrush. Can you believe that???? This is awful. This tells you how awful my surgeon and his residents are. At this point I should be assessing the place I am going to be getting my surgery done at and the people that I am allowing to let cut me open. That sad part about it Northwestern Memorial Hospital is a high rated hospital in their surgical care and knowledgable base on bariatric surgery and the my surgeon is the head of the bariatric department ... should I have concern?????
Let me tell you exactly what happened. You will never believe it. When I noticed this stuff on my tongue late Saturday night prior to my surgery on December 01, 2007 I kind of freaked out (ok well I did freak out.) On Sunday December 02, 2007 I had to run a Christmas gift over to my best friend's house that she was going to wrap for a mutual family friend for both of us (because I am a procrastinator and since I was going to be having surgery and the gift was in my trunk that would probably have remained in my trunk until February of 2008.) I showed my best friend my tongue on and instantly she goes, "oh you have geographic tongue. That is what I have. Remember that is what I had been diagnoised with in highschool?" and I was like, "NO. NO. NO. It is something so much worse! It is so ugly and disgusting. It is some Fungus or disease on my tongue." My friend was like, "I am telling you that it looks like my tongue."
I was pretty adamant that it was something else and had left because I had other errands to run. I had to get things done and my bag packed for my surgery. That afternoon/evening my friend and talked to our mutual family friend over the phone and they had discussed my medical concern and our family friend went on "Webmd.com" to look up my medical condition. Since I did not agree with my best friends initial diagnosis they informed me that I had Thrush. Since the diagnosis appeared to be reasonable I agreed that was what I had. I figured that since I had only been intaking 400 calories for the past 4-5 days with no natural bacterias and all proteins along with taking Cypro (because of my UC and pouchitis) that must have cause excessive yeast to grow in my body ... made sense. So when I walked in to my initial surgery date on 12-03-07 I stated to my surgeon, "I
THINK I have thrush. According to the website ..." "I have never had this in my life." So he glanced at my tongue and had a discussing with his residence and anesthesiologist. The next thing the resident was giving me a prescription for Nystatin to swish and spit four times a day and my surgery was rescheduled for a week and a day later. Filling the prescription was **** because the resident did not put an appropriate amount of the prescription and of course the pharmacist could not get a hold of him.
Now during that week I had a **** of a week at work. But that prescription the resident wrote was for FOUR days. Who the **** rights a prescription for four days. A resident is supposed to learn about everthing and does not have a specialty. He should know something about thrush or have some idea and should now that any antibiotic type medications should be taken for ten to fourteen days (and if he did not he should of looked it up). Of course I did not know any of this. At the end of the week It took literally 10 calls back and forth to get the dam prescription refilled ... yeah that reduced my stress level just a little bit. Then my surgeon's nurse happed to "forget" to call the refill in (after I left work specifically early one evening just to get my refill... that was a pleasant end of day topper.) Besides of all of this my surgeon should have known all of this also. I suppose he may have felt that he did not have to double check his resident????
I was going to say all of this at the end what my surgeon totally f*cked up on but I will just state it now since you guys know that I NEVER had thrush. 1. My surgeon just believed my own diagnosis after I said that I think I have thrush and even after I said that I have never had it in my life and after I said after it was looked up on the internet and 2. he NEVER NEVER NEVER even swabbed my tongue. Can you believe that??? I could of had a flesh eating virus or something that could have killed me and him. He never found out what he was dealing with. How unsafe. I never went to medical school. He has never taken my world on anything else before?
After taking the medication for a couple of days it appeared that the medication was working. It appeared there were changes during the week. Then towards the weekend it looked like some it was coming back... some more white spots. Then on Sunday 12-09-07 it looked liked I was not taking any of the medication at all. There were new different white spots ... different ones. I was getting nervous and frustrated. I Sunday 12-09-07 I took a Diflucan pill (prescription for yeast infections) figuring that would help in wiping out any yeast in my body. I had been eating yogurt everyday. I had been changing my toothbrush often. On Monday 12-10-07 I had my surgeon paged. I thought he was going to call me and check up on me since I was on his surgery schedule you would think he would want to see how I was doing so I would not be coming in there on Tuesday to waste his time. I figured I would tell him that it had not changed but figured he could keep me on the schedule since I had been on a week of anti-fungal medication. The surgeon never called me back. By 3pm I got a hold of his nurse who got a hold of him. She informed me that he wanted me on the 21 days of Diflucan and to reschedule me in Jan (I believe I wrote that in my last entry.) So after all that happened not only was I sad, pissed, angry, but I was confused. Of course I was not sleeping well. Not only all of that the surgeon still had not even wanted to see my tongue at that point or swab it. He still did not even actually diagnos officially if I actually have thrush.
On Tuesday evening (12-11-07) I was thinking why is my tongue not improving at all? I have been on anti-fungal medication for nine days with Diflucan overlapping for three days and one of those days it was a 200 mg dose ... that is a lot. I know my PC has a sick call so on Wed. I went. I believe I saw a Nurse Practioner (yeah I did not even know her name... hope it was not someone off the street
... she seemed pretty thorough.) She was asking me if I was diabetic... if I was I would have had my lap band a year ago. She asked about my vitamin B level cause I guess if that is low it causes things to grow on your tongue?? I said that it was tested and I was not informed of it being low. She asked about being HIV positive/negative. I informed her I was tested in October and it was negative. I informed her that I was familiar with the correlation with the yeast and HIV. So yes she was covering her basis. She swabbed my tongue and stated that it did not look like thrush but she did not know what it was. She said she would send it to the lab and that she would give me a number for an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) doctor.
Well I did not waste any time. Since I have a PPO and do not need any referrals I figured I was not going to wait for those swab results. I called to see if there were any available appointments and there were
. Went the same day. The doctor was very nice. He walked in and I told him that I might need biopsies! He laughed and said that I did not need any. He looked in my ears, up my nose, and at my tongue and said that I did not have thrush and that I may never have had thrush! He said that I have....
GEOGRAPHIC TONGUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it. My #1 friend was right!!!!!!!!!! Maybe I should have her do my lap band surgery!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She took one look at my tongue and diagnosed it. The ENT stated that he obviously has seen thrush many times over and I did not have it. He stated that if I had it I do not have it now and the swab that was taken will most likely be negative especially since all of the anti-fungal medications that I have been taking but I do not have thrush right now. He said geographic tongue is normal and is a normal tongue. He stated the medical name for it and said it is benign. So I asked if I was going to have an ugly tongue for life and he informed me that I was... go figure. I am going to become outwardly beautiful from the lapband so now god had to fix that with an ugly tongue ... guess I will have to deal with it
. As long as that is the worst of it and I do not loose my mind or any of my mental capabilities I am fine with it.
So one of the first calls I made was to my surgeon's nurse's voice mail to inform her/him that I do not/most likely never had thrush and the ENT could not understand how my surgeon never even swabbed my tongue to determine what was wrong. I informed her that my tongue will forever look like this so when I up for my surgery my tongue will still look like this and if they do not believe this diagnosis they will have to bring their own ENT down to swap my tongue to prove that I do not have any fungus on my tongue. I informed her that I could get my diagnosis and the lab worked faxed and that I could be put back on the surgery schedule for next week!!!!!
.... yeah I received a pretty quick return call.
I still have not spoke to my surgeon directly even though I have requested that he contact me and maybe that is for the better since I have a lot of anger because I feel things have not been handled appropriately. I have spoked to my psychologist ... she has been helpful. She has answered my calls and spoke to me for over 1 1/2 hours on Tues while I was venting/crying about everything ( I was going to ask her if I could expect a bill. She would appreciated the humor because she can expect that sarcastic stuff out of my mouth but I never asked her if she was charging me ...) All the calls have been back and forth between me and his nurse. Bascially as it stands I am waiting for the swab that states I do not officially have thrush that was swabbed on Wednesday and I will not get until Monday and when I get it Monday I will fax it to their office and he will "come in especially for me." on 12-31-07 to do my surgery. He should come in for me since I have been putting my life and schedule on hold for him and since he failed to do what he should have done.
Upset... (understatement) and alone.
Gosh sorry for not proof reading!!!
I was approved for both the Lap Band as well as Gastric Bypass surgery and both times, medical issues came up of all the times that prevented me from having it done- before those times, I was perfectly healthy, other than my weight. The third time was over one stinking pound.......
Input was appreciated ... another long response :)
Best Wishes
. I am obviously at the very very "big" end of the lap band spectrum so that scares me, but I am determined. Guess as the date gets closer I do get nervous. 
and happy and HEALTHY New Year 
!!!! I hope to post after I return from the hospital if not before I go in. 
