Actually it’s been since October 5th that I last made an entry in my blog. It was a photobook at that time and the time before. All this new technology has really cut into my blogging time. I have an IPhone which amuses me most of the time. I joined Facebook and that keeps me busy checking the status of folks, etc. I even have a Twitter account. Although it is lacking, I do get daily updates from Pete Delkus on my IPhone. That’s fun. Gmail is now my e-mail of choice and it is a very powerful tool. I can make documents and share them with others for revisions, etc. Add the new technologies with keeping up with the twins’ daily progress and then figure in that I’ve been really sick for over a year and my blogging has gone kaput!
So, I plan to remedy that. Right now, I'll share my Crohn's issues. In a later post, I'll tell about the little twins.
Last February (2009), I had a terrible pain in my left side. It felt like a Charlie horse that wouldn’t go away. My innards cramped like crazy. Anything I ate made me sick. So, I existed on flour tortillas and water for the month of March. I began a weight loss that would eventually be over 100 pounds. My gastroenterologist tried several medications to help alleviate the pain, but it wouldn’t go away.
The pain continued to come and go until July when I finally got to where I couldn’t eat nor drink for four days. That ended with a 6-day hospital stay to try to re-hydrate me and get me over the hump. I was looking forward to being well. Among other things, my doctor put me on steroids which made me feel better for a few weeks. Prednisone (the steroid) usually makes the patient feel super as if she can jump over the Empire State Building and makes the patient so hungry she could eat the bark off of trees. That’s exactly what it did while I took it.
By October, I began to experience more pain in my left side, but this time, it was a different kind of pain even though it was still on my left side. The pain began in my back and radiated around my waist, down my left side, and into my groin area. Thinking that it was my Crohn’s still bothering me, my doctor changed up my medications. I was lethargic and had no energy no matter how much I rested.
In November, I had to take off work because I could not teach with the pain I was experiencing on my left side. From July to January, I had five CAT Scans, a sigmoidoscopy, and various other tests to pinpoint my problem. My doctor continued to believe that it was my colon which was inflamed from a Crohn’s flare up.
Finally, I decided to see my family physician since I wasn’t getting any better. After all, he’d been my doctor for over 30 years. I figured he knew my body better than anyone else. He wanted to do still another CAT scan because he thought my pain might be from a kidney stone. When he saw me in agony as he walked past the waiting room, he immediately ordered pain shots and said I would be going straight to Providence. Sure enough, the scan showed a stone. He called Dr. Elwell, his doctor friend, who had also seen me in the clinic there at Clifton and asked him to be my admitting doctor. He agreed to do it.
By the time I got there and checked in, Dr. Elwell came by to see me and had lined up a whole slew of specialists which included a urologist. Over the next thirteen days, I underwent tests and more tests and procedures (MRI, CAT scan, colonoscopy, sonogram, 5 units of blood, NG tubes, etc.). The results indicated that I needed a stent in my kidney so that I could pass the kidney stone plus have colon surgery to remove the inflamed portion. So, all of those procedures were done.
I can tell you looking back now, that I am finally beginning to feel normal again. I have no pain; I don’t get tired as easily; I can recover from fatigue quicker; I have a little energy; I have a brighter outlook; I can eat foods that I haven’t eaten in years; and I even smile and crack jokes which I hadn’t done in months. I think I’m finally “fixed”.
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