Surprise hospital visit

Leave a comment

To say this past week has been overwhelming is an understatement. I went to the emergency room last Thursday because of lower abdominal pain that was so severe I couldn’t walk upright. I knew that it was related to my Crohn’s disease, and I thought I would be prescribed a steroid and sent home. Instead, I was admitted to the hospital.

After blood work and a CT scan, I discovered that my bowel was severely inflamed and I have an abscess on my right side that has created an infection in my body. I also have a small fistula. (If you don’t know, a fistula is when the ulcers within the intestine turn into tracts and create an abnormal connection between the intestine and another part of the body.) I was given antibiotics for the infection and after three days, I was transferred to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

When I got to Johns Hopkins, a team of doctors discussed treating the abscess with antibiotics, draining it, or surgically removing it. Since it’s not a good idea to perform surgery during active inflammation, they’re currently focused on draining the abscess; I’m waiting to hear when this will happen.

In the past four days I’ve been poked and prodded for more reasons than I can remember. I haven’t been allowed to eat or drink anything since I was admitted to the hospital, and I’m hungry, like VERY hungry. Most importantly, I miss my girls. I miss them most at night. I miss giving them a bath while singing songs and watching them play with toy ducks and seahorses. I miss towel drying their hair and helping them pick out donut-covered pajamas. I miss the smell of Mackenzie’s apple-scented hair detangler. I miss curling up with the girls in bed and reading a good book. And I miss holding hands as a family and praying before bed time. This is when I feel like the disease is taking something from me. This is when I feel like everything around me keeps going while I play catch up.

Thank God for my husband, here with me now, asleep in the uncomfortable chair next to my bed.

 

Yes, I’m a Crohnie

Leave a comment

I’m usually preoccupied with what my Crohn’s disease feels like, but lately I’ve been consumed by what it looks like. I look in the mirror and I see a woman who looks sick. My clothes don’t fit; they hang off of me. I don’t like to look at myself when I’m getting dressed because I know what I’ll see, a skeleton. I don’t have enough color in my face; people often ask me if I’m tired. And I’m always carrying around my cell phone and rushing back to my desk at work in fear of missing a phone call from one of my doctors. Even now, as I type this, I’m staring at the unforgiving black screen on my cell phone, waiting for my doctor to call and set up my Remicade infusions.

I call-in sick to work when I can’t get out of bed because of the pain, and I leave work early some days for doctor’s appointments. And eventually people start to ask why. Some people simply share their concern, “Are you okay?” Some people get right to the point, “You’ve lost a lot of weight. What’s wrong with you?” And some people have no concept of what’s appropriate, “You’ve lost too much weight. You can stop now.” Sometimes I share what I’m going through and sometimes I’m intentionally vague. And yet, however inconvenient these questions may be, they got me to thinking. If I don’t start talking about what I’m going through, how can I expect people to understand?

So little by little, I started sharing my struggle. I talked to a teacher at my daughters’ school who has ulcerative colitis. She has become a great support for me each day when I drop off my daughters. We talk about how we’re feeling, what medicine we’re trying, and how much we miss coffee. Then she encouraged me to join her in the Take Steps for Crohn’s and Colitis walk this summer. I was hesitant at first because I knew this meant fundraising, which meant sharing why this cause is so important to me. But I decided to put on my big girl pants and register with the team, and I’m so glad I did. Since then, I’ve built relationships with other people suffering from an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and I don’t feel alone anymore. I’ve learned to be brave and say, “Yes, I’m a Crohnie”.

Creating this blog is my next step in sharing with others my experience with Crohn’s disease. It wasn’t easy for me to create this blog and to commit to putting it all out there, but if I can let someone else know that they’re not alone, then it’s all worth it.