*Freeze frame*

Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

This is a failure of sorts. Not hereditary, so I can’t blame my family. No known cause or trigger, so no big regrets. I sleep with a wedge and have an eating schedule that rivals a Mogwai—no late-night snacks. No prevention, no cure—just a wonky lower esophageal sphincter (LES). Treatments? Scopes, balloons, Botox—you name it, I’ve tried it.

It’s called Esophageal Achalasia. No hashtags or TikTok challenges for this one. It’s rare, but not that rare—about 1 in 100,000. We're talking dying in a commercial plane crash or being born polydactyly…being struck by lightning twice or finding a five-leaf clover. Ok, maybe that is rare but not a one in a million type thing, so stay vigilant!

About 12 years ago, I noticed I was struggling with certain foods. I assumed it was diet-related. I also had this persistent cough, which I blamed on post-nasal drip. I tried an elimination diet—nothing changed. Visits to doctors didn’t reveal much at first. Eventually, an ENT ruled out ears and nose, and the gastro team stepped in. A barium swallow X-ray finally showed what was going on…and the bird’s beak looked like the picture on the Wikipedia page.

Fast forward to now. After years of managing this condition with copious amounts of water and will to eat, I decided it was time for long-term treatment. I just had a Heller Myotomy with Dor Fundoplication…a modernized 110-year-old procedure which puts the “fun” in acid reflux. There’s another option called a per-oral endoscopic myotomy (POEM for short) but it’s not available locally. 

So, who knows what’s next…the surgery seems to have gone well, but I’ve got some time (a month or so) before I can truly test out my “refurbished” esophagus. I’m cautiously optimistic and looking forward to the psychological relief. For years, eating has been preoccupied with a a type of anxiety—wondering if I’d choke, gulping down water to make pesky food go down, constantly strategizing every bite. My hope is that this surgery helps me drop some of this emotional doggie baggage and go back to enjoying food instead of fearing it.