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| Meet Martin Mueller IV |
| My Story (March 1995) My first appointment was with a military family practice doctor, Lt. D. Dorenkamp and he had no clue what was wrong with me. He refered me to Dr. T. Frost a civilian provider that worked on the base. They started by doing a barium swallow x-ray and that was when the doctor immediately referred me to an Army hospital - 60 miles away. Dr. H. De La Baume, Maj. actually ran some tests and determined that I had “an esophagus of an old person”. He claimed to have never seen such a distorted esophagus in such a young person after doing the manometry. He decided to do a balloon dilation the next week. He knew what it was and confirmed what the other doctors suspected, which was a relief. I now had a name for what I have and it is called Achalasia. I was at 119 pounds. I was starting to think it was all in my head! I had some minor problems from time to time, but it lasted for seven years. (March 2002) Then, all of a sudden I started getting worse again. I had been doing some reading on the internet (sometimes good, sometimes bad). I saw an article about Botox being used to treat Achalasia. I suggested it to Dr. Gary Goldstein, my G.I. doctor, and he thought we would give it a try. I did botox injections, each one giving me about three months of relief. Then it just wasn’t working anymore. I suggested we try a Heller’s laproscopic myotomy. I was in Tucson in the time and, had a hard time finding a doctor that would take the AF insurance, and knew what to do. I finally found Dr. David Neal. He did the Heller’s myotomy (March 2003) with a toupet funduplication wrap. He made it a little too tight (found out later that he didn’t cut down far enough). I still had problems with it being tight, so I had to have balloon dilations periodically for relief. (September 2003) We moved to England. The problems were getting worse. The only G.I doctor the military had in England was also the Hospital Administrator, so it was hard for him to devote attention to me, and run a hospital. He ran some tests and decided to refer me to an off base doctor – My introduction to the National Health Care System in England. I had been doing more research on the internet, and the Yahoo site suggested a Dr. Nick Maynard at Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford (about two hours drive from our house). Great doctor, talked to me instead of at me. He decided after running the same tests, I needed another myotomy, but this time open. He didn’t want to go into already chartered waters blind. While waiting for the British health care system to approve me, and for the Air Force to agree to pay for it, I got worse. I wasn’t even able to keep water down. (May 2005) I had another myotomy a week later and that was when I was given relief, at the expense of 46 staples and a really cool scar that is fun to reveal at parties. We call it my shark bite. I am thinking of getting a tattoo to even it all out. Looking back at it now, I wish I would have done the surgery to begin with. Then in Oct 2007 I had to go in for another surgery. The last one I hope. I started having more problems about mid year so I went back to my doctor. I found a surgeon in Atlanta at the Emory University Hospital. I had an eosphajectomy done. The surgeon had to take out a 1/4 of my stomach due to how much damage the disease and all the other surgeries and procedures that had been done. He also took out all the damaged Eosphagus, about 2/3 of it leaving me with about 2 inches left. He then made a tube out of the rest of my stomach and brought it up to attach to the remaining eosphagus. The surgery took about 5 hours and I did really well with the operation. I stayed in hospital for 12 days and was doing really well. Two weeks after my discharge I was back in hospital because I could not breath and I was in a lot of pain. I went to the emergency room and they told me I had an abscess on my lung. They told me that I was going to have to be admitted so they could treat the problem. I said I needed to go back to Emory so that my surgeon could take care of me due to he knew what surgery he had done and I felt he could handle this problem better. So I was transported back to Emory by ambulance. The 2 hour ride was not one I would want to do again. They did more test up there and found that I had a staff infection MRSA between my right lung and the chest wall. The mass was the size of a cookie. I was put on IV antibiotics and stayed in hospital for another 7 days. I am glad that the surgery is over and I am eating a lot better now. I can eat everything I did before except I dairy products. they seem to give me some problems so I try and stay away from them. I have to go back annually for a check up, endoscopy and MRI to make sure all is working like it should. We formed this web site for the support of achalasia patients and their families, to help educate and inform people of all of their options. Please feel free to email myself or one of the partners on this web site for any personal questions you may have or suggestions for the site. You can contact me through the site or email me directly at mmueller@achalasia.us! – Martin Mueller IV |
