Hi everyone. It’s actually surprising how many people read about my health travails and even more surprising how many people genuinely seem to care. So say my stats and my comment log, anyway.

I’ve been neglectful in faithfully updating in this regard in the past few weeks. Perhaps I hope it will magically evaporate, go away, cease to be.

I didn’t update when I went back to my gastroenterologist and he revealed to me that I’d tested positive for an antibody that indicates that I most likely indeed do have Crohn’s disease. I didn’t update the daily feelings of “ugh” and malaise. I thought I could be bigger than that.

On Wednesday night, I ended up with a free evening (in the midst of a two-week stint of family visits), so on my way home from work I got some takeout pad Thai and had a solo meal, with lots of hot sauce and a beer (just one! I swear.). By the time I’d finished eating, I felt uncomfortable, puffed up. I reclined for a while and read some of “Sister Carrie.” No better. I took a bath. Not better, worse. By the time David got home from his evening activities, I felt bad. Stabbing, clenching pains in my gut accompanied with swirly nausea. I took an Oxycodone tablet I had left over from my last hospital trip and waited. Nothing.

After about an hour I told David I needed to go to the hospital. I’m glad we did. The ER was busy and there was some wait. I felt like jumping out of my skin or screaming. At least I knew what was wrong: I staggered right up to the desk and said “partial bowel obstruction.” And I knew exactly what I needed: get me an IV, then Zofram for the nausea, then Dilaudid for the pain–that’s right, nothing can touch this pain, not even morphine, except Dilaudid. Dilaudid is a miracle drug in about a hundred different ways (and, according to Wikipedia, it’s three times stronger than Heroin by volume).

This time they didn’t make me stay. They watched me for a few hours, gave me a few more drugs to help things relax and move through and then sent me home at 3a.m. with a prescription of Dilaudid in pill form (I’m amazed they let people take the stuff unsupervised!). I slept all day yesterday and humped myself into work this morning at about 10:30.

I’m scheduled for another colonoscopy in April. More exploration to see if it really is Crohn’s that has me all wrong. What I’m struggling with now is the emotional fallout of the situation. I can’t deal with how it leaves my coworkers in the lurch when I am out for a few days here and there. Or my family, or Mr. Pencil. I feel like I can’t depend on being OK. I don’t want to despair but sometimes it’s hard not to.

Anyway, onward. I have a lot to do and look forward to.

UPDATED: Due to my fun with the ER, my GI has moved my next colonoscopy up to next week–on Mr. Pencil’s birthday, no less. Crikes. Wish me luck.

Tags: appendix, health, hospital

I got out of the hospital yesterday late afternoon, and spent from then until now sleeping–I never sleep that solidly (though I do sleep a lot) in the hospital. I had to drink barium again (bleck) yesterday, though in a much smaller dose than my first CT scan in January, accompanied by anti-nausea meds (magical!), and mixed with something specific to contrast my belly bits. Then they X-rayed me periodically for about 45 minutes. The results: swelling has gone down markedly and I’m back on the heal. I can eat, but am restricted to a low-fiber diet. This feels entirely non-intuitive: emphasis on processed ingredients, white grains, refined things.

A ray of good news comes through all of this: three experts–my surgeon, her partner surgeon, and my gastroenterologist–are skeptical of the Crohn’s disease diagnosis. My GI, especially, who sort of specializes in the condition. As he puts it, the tissue from my surgery that was “consistent” with Crohn’s disease was not actually “diagnostic” of it. Plus, they all add, it’s virtually impossible that I would have had a flareup of Crohn’s so soon after the removal of its source. So, yippee? More doctor’s appointments in the future, but I think I’m near the end of this fun.

Tags: appendix, Crohn's, health, medical

Yep, still in the hospital. The general consensus is that I have a bowel obstruction, but there’s some un-clarity about why. Some doctors are posing something to do with Crohn’s Disease, while others are almost certain I don’t even have Crohn’s.

So, it’s a lot of wait-and-see-ing. Blockages like this caused by complications to surgery are common enough and generally go away on their own. Tomorrow I’ll have another scan, more in-depth than my emergency CT yesterday, to get more details.

Until then, I can drink clear fluids but not eat, and the nurses are keeping me comfortable with morphine derivatives and anti-nausea meds. I’m awake, alert and aware and thus welcome visitors, if you’re so inclined.

And I do like the theory that the notion that I have Crohn’s disease at all might just be totally wrong.

Tags: appendix, complication, health, hospital, medical

This time it appears that I have a partial bowel obstruction. Woke up last night with what I would describe as the worst stomach cramps/ pain I’e ever had Ended up in the ER, another CT scan, now I’m checked in again after five hours in the ER. The prognosis looks like a few days? Apparently these things kind of “go away on their own” but until then I’m on morphine (it HURTS), bed rest, and no food or water until it heals. So they have to keep me here to feed me through tubes.

Yay, hospital living! Your good thoughts help me stay afloat!

Tags: appendix, health, medical

Today is the first day I have dragged myself into the office, for a few hours. I wish I had more to update you on or discuss than my inner bits, but that’s how things have been rolling in my life.

Most of the previous posts I cannot recall writing. I spent the weekend resting, and I would say by Saturday afternoon the miasma of amnesia had lifted and things have mostly seemed clear since then. Things were indistinct enough during my stay in the hospital that I somehow missed the detail that I had actually been disemboweled (through a 2-inch slot above my belly button) and that I am actually now minus five inches of intestine. Didn’t realize it was that much! Sometimes it’s better not to find things out until later.

All in all, though, the tubes are working! I can eat almost normally, and, really, this whole thing just hasn’t been that bad. I’m still sleeping a lot and reliant on opiate painkillers to a degree, but I feel like normal is not that far away.

Tags: appendix, health, medical