Gut Feelingz

​Gosh. So much has happened since I last posted. I was super sick for a few months there. Like suuuper sick. Christmas break was me on the recliner, drugged up with a heating pad. Even getting out of bed felt like a feat. Not my best for sure. I eventually called my doc about it, and he put me back on Prednisone. He figured that plus the new Humira injections would kick the Crohn’s to the curb. At one point, I started to hope he was right. My stools started to be formed (there were plops, people!). He said that meant the Humira was working. So he had me taper off the Prednisone. This could be the magic cocktail we were looking for! It wasn’t. Since being off Prednisone, I have gotten progressively worse. I am now back to pooping straight water (really foul water) and hurting and feeling achy and awful. The doc ordered a blood test and a stool sample (fairly routine, unfortunately) and met with me yesterday. Things don’t look good. My Calprotectin levels are still really high, though my...

Oh man. I’ve been sooooo much better the past few days. SO much better than I was for months. I know it’s all thanks to the Prednisone, but I don’t care. It’s been an enormous relief and has offered some desperately needed respite.  I was able to not only participate in but also help pull off Cora’s baptism. I was able to play card games with company. I went to a doctor’s appointment (kidney doc) in Safford today - AND to lunch - with no awful consequences! This is so big, you have no idea.  The only weird thing is that (tmi) my diarrhea has been black. Like black black. And like full of sediment.  Sort of sandy. I randomly thought to Google it (purely curious at that point), and I learned that this is typically indicative of an active bleed higher up in the digestive tract - maybe the esophagus/stomach/small intestine. They compared it to ground coffee grounds, and I was like, “Yes!” That described it perfectly - well, if coffee grounds are black as night! So, naturally,...

I have had some incredibly low moments as of late. Lots of feeling defeated, very little hope for the future, just really low. I’ve been basically bedridden since November 3 (Just looked it up. Shoot. Two months solid. No wonder). Anyway, it’s fine. (My motto as of late: it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine! ) Derek has been amazing - seriously. He has done all of the Derek things and 95% of the Becca things, and he has been so loving and encouraging and guilt-dismissing the entire time. We’ve also had a couple holiday breaks in there which has helped. James had to quarantine from exposure for ten days which meant less early mornings, no soccer practice, and another potential helper at home. Hazel was sick and fevered for a bit so she stayed home from school as well. All of this eliminated some busy work and allowed me to stay in bed with a heating pad. Not the dream, obviously, but nice to be able to be down with less repercussions.  I have learned to lean more on my village, le...

My doctor didn’t come talk to me after my colonoscopy, and the report just listed moderate to severe “colitis” (which means general inflammation), so I was pretty clueless as to his thoughts and findings. Thankfully I had a follow up appointment just a few days out (Monday, Dec. 6). Pathology results (twelve biopsies again, ow) had come back along with blood test results and stool sample results, so it promised to be a pretty comprehensive appointment. Turns out it was. I have Crohn’s disease. :( I have damage/inflammation/ulcers in my stomach, my small intestine, and all through my large intestine (minus my rectum, again, thankfully). My pathology results plus the physical manifestations they could see (cobblestoning etc) led him to diagnose me officially and confidently with Crohn’s.  Somehow it feels scarier and more serious now, but I have to remember that my body is not going to suddenly change just because they figured out what it is called. I do, however, have a whole new me...

My GI wanted me to get a second colonoscopy (and EDG) to kind of follow up and see if things were better or worse or what was going on in there. He prescribed me the normal poisonous juice, but I begged him to let me do Miralax/Gatorade prep I’d head about. He told me that honestly he didn’t care what method I used, as long as it was efficient. So we went with it! (Yay!) He told me to do one scoop (cap full) of miralax with 6oz clear fluid 4-6 times within a four hour period. Oh, and 2 dulcolax at the beginning of all that. I did a third dulcolax mid-way through and made sure to chug lots of fluids between doses (and did maybe 8 scoops of miralax total). But still - waaaay less awful than the battery acid they typically make you drink. And I felt that the clean-out process was much gentler too. Note: I also did a clear liquid diet for two days proceeding. This was hard. The first 24 hours, I had a raging migraine that wouldn’t settle and just felt awful. I would have thought it was a s...

For the last week or so, I’ve had a lot of stomach pain and diarrhea. I’ve been passing a ton of undigested food as well, which is concerning. None of this has yet been as bad as it got pre-diagnosis, but it’s still pretty bad. And they’re all definite red flags. I’ve tried taking Tylenol and using a heat pack and eating really safe foods in the hopes that this would pass.  It has not gotten better. This all started about 10 days after I’d been diagnosed with COVID. I had had a relatively mild case. I had been cleared and had tested negative, but then my littles came down with it. It’s possible this flare is due to stress (health anxiety is no joke). I’ve also been stressing about the upcoming holidays and planning all the details about hosting loads of company for Cora’s upcoming baptism etc. That likely isn’t helping. (I hate that anything fun or exciting automatically manifests as stress in my body.) However, these things may all be inconsequential. It’s possible that all this i...

My stomach has started hurting again. First, it was just that left-of-the-navel area (which was the location of the worst of the pain before), but now it’s starting to spread. I know I’ve been stressed, so I’m trying to rest and find joy and say “no” when I can. I’m not sure what else to do. I don’t want to tell my doc because I don’t want him to up my Prednisone (I’m at 5mg now… so close to the end). Hopefully it will pass. I’ll eat safe foods and baby my body and hope things heal and don’t get worse. Fingers crossed.  Update: It worked. I was able to baby my belly enough for this to pass. At least for a time.