State Fair Part 2 and other things...

Remember how I said I would give you my part two of the fair today? Yeah. Today started off well but I ended up not bringing my pictures with me to work so, that flew out the window. The good news is, my friend Morgan documented the second half of what I was going to document for you already! Check out her blog, The Handcrafted Life. You'll see that after the piggy races, we went to the animal barns, side-stepped some really bad ...manure and saw some more animals. Cows, piglets!!, chicks, donkeys that looked dead but were really just sleeping and goats. There were lots of babies in the barn with their Moms. So cute! We also got to see some ginormous gourds, pumpkins and a sweet potato that still looked good enough to eat that was from last years fair!! We said goodbye to Morgan and her husband so Hops could go look at some sheds. We are in the market, it wasn't just a random stop. On the way out of the fair, it was absolutely nuts. We were stuck in this crush of people that was worse than any rush hour traffic I have ever been in. We came to complete stops quite a few times. There wasn't even room to do our bob and weave maneuvers we usually try to do to get through the crowd! At one point, I got ahead of Hops, looked back and he just waved me on "God speed, woman! See you at the finish line!"

This past week, including the weekend, has definitely been interesting. Hops was diagnosed with a few throat issues last week. He went to the Ear Nose and Throat doctor who sent him to a radiologist to do a barium swallow. It's a test where you have to drink a barium liquid and then the radiologist takes X-Rays of you to see how your esophagus and stomach are working. The radiologist sent him back to the ENT, who looked at the results. He has three issues that are all related:

• Acid Reflux (not major)
• Lower esophageal ring (aka: Schatzki's ring)
• Narrowing of the esophagus (Yikes)!!

So, you're probably wondering why he went to the ENT in the first place? We went to The Angus Barn for our anniversary dinner on October 15th. It was an amazing meal and we had a great time. He woke up the next morning, on our actual anniversary feeling like there was something stuck in his throat. He was very anxious because he could not seem to get whatever it was to go down. We were thisclose to going to the Emergency Room. Well, instead, we spent the day at home, watching TV and trying to stay calm. It was a nice day other than him not feeling great. On Monday he woke up and the feeling was still there. That's what prompted the visit.

He put himself on a soft foods diet late last week. When we were at the fair, he ate some fries and had a few bites of my food but was afraid to eat too much there. He has been eating soup, crackers, cheese, smoothies, Frosty's and...more soup. I also made him the Virgin Green Monster on Monday morning and he really liked it. I've been making him one of those every morning for breakfast this week. I adapted it just a little by adding some peanut butter.  Thankfully he has an appointment to have his esophagus stretched on Friday of next week. I just hope we can make it until then!! The man likes to eat - this is a hard diet to be on for someone who really enjoys chewing and eating steak, chicken and pork!! Getting your esophagus stretched is an out-patient procedure but it's a bit frightening. They have to put you under anesthesia and it can take up to 2 hours to complete the procedure. Hops has never had anesthesia before so, of course I'm going to worry. I'm going to work from home and then work from the doctor's office that day so I can take him there and then take him back home afterwards. I'm sure I'll write about it after the procedure is done.

This weekend we're going to a family wedding. I'm hoping we can find him something to eat at dinner that he can get down without feeling like he's choking to death. I figure if I get enough beers in him, maybe he'll forget about eating? Ha! Right. One never forgets to eat.

That's it for now, a little update and some info on where my brain has been recently. I also know that I totally bailed on the 30 day photography challenge. I'm not even going to try to catch up. Maybe one of these days I'll get back into it but for now, I'm taking a break from challenges.