Sunday afternoon, after church, actually it kinda started during Sunday school, I started to feel a major Crohns flair-up start. I haven’t had a really good crohns flair-up in years, but this one is really bad. It started with pain in my rectal area while I was sitting down during Sunday school. Soon as Sunday school was over, and I got up, it felt like I had just sat on knifes, so I took the church bus home like I normally do. Pretty much as soon as I walked in the door, I started having diarrhea, then later that afternoon, throwing up blood too.
A normal person would probably freak out if they saw this, but I knew it was another day in the life of a Crohns Disease patient.
What alot of people don’t understand about Crohns Disease, its a chronic illness, so I can’t go to the doctor and just get a magic pill that will take it away. We were supposed to go to a tailgate party Sunday evening at the church, and my uncle calls me around 8pm to ask me why I didn’t show up to the party. I just told him I was sick, because I didn’t want to go into the gory details. I just figured that was too much information for him, thats all. He then called my mom to be sure I had a way to see the doctor, and he wanted to know who I would be seeing. I tried to tell him its just a crohns flair-up, and that there’s nothing the doctors can do about it, but he didn’t understand that, and I didn’t know how to explain it without going into gory details, so I just left it at that. I would think my aunt deane would since she’s a nurse and everything. Its just so hard to explain to family, because they think you can just goto the doctor and get some magic pill, when Crohns just doesn’t work like that, all I can do is wait it out.
Now, if I had constant bleeding for a week or more, then yeah I would goto the doctor, probably to ER, but when its flu like symptoms, accompanied by bleeding, then we know its just a crohns flair up. The bleeding settled down by Monday afternoon, so I am better today, least now I’m not going to the restroom every 10 minutes, its down to every hour now. haha.
I’m still having some bleeding, and discharge, but no more then usual with the Fistulas I have. My Fistulas are beginning to get extremely inflamed, so they hurt more then usual lately, but even my rectal surgeons always told me the best thing to do for that is to sit in a bath of warm water, so thats what I’ve been doing, but since my Crohns specialists are located in Indianapolis, then all I can do is wait until the next time I have a GI appointment in Indianapolis to bring it up then. Mom hasn’t had time to take me to Indianapolis, so I’ve had to wait it out. The last time I saw my GI in Indy, he wanted me to decide rather I want an ileostomy or not. Bringing up this latest flair up, will only make him want to insist on an ileostomy more. I’m not against the idea of an ileostomy necessarily, I just think its overkill for just a few Fistulas, and want to save that option for very last, when there is no other alternative.
He said the other option, would be higher dosages of Remicade, or other alternatives like Humira, a shot you give yourself in the arm. I would rather try those options first, saving major surgery for very last, does that make any sense? I was on Remicade before, but only 5cc’s of it, which I guess is the very lowest dosage, so the alternative is to try a higher dosage more often, to see if that will do the trick for these Fistulas. The next alternative would be Humira, the shots, I suppose. This GI in Indy hasn’t brought up that alternative yet, but I know its another treatment available.
Even if something does work though, I’ll still have flu like symptoms for the rest of my life, until a cure for Crohns Disease is found. I feel so bad because my family doesn’t understand why I isolate myself away from them when they try to invite me over for family get togethers and such. Its not that I don’t want to see my family, I love my family very much, and I always will, but if you were having diarrhea, throwing up blood, and just having general flu like symptoms, would you go to your relatives house feeling like that? Of course not. My family makes jokes about it all, thats because its not happening to them, and I think the jokes are just to keep from worrying, but the thing is, there isn’t anything to worry about, its just part of the chronic illness called Crohns Disease. I mean, there are much worse things in life to worry about, like my step-dad Ron who can’t hardly breathe, or someone with cancer. So I mean, there are much worse things that people live thru, is how I look at all this, and I am thankful each and every day, that God only allows me to endure crohns, then some other serious illness.
Like my family doctor said once, could be worse, I could have Lupus, which is the same thing except attacking 11 additional internal organs, like the heart, liver, lungs, etc. I can’t imagine going thru that, for I know with Crohns, when inflammation attacks an organ, that organ no longer functions correctly, like right now my small and large intestines aren’t working like they should, but imagine having Lupus, and not having a heart that works right, or a liver that works right, or eyes, I just can’t imagine, so really despite going thru all this, I am thankful that its not something worse.
