I was originally diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in April of 1990 (about 3 days before my wedding).
More than a year earlier, this my mother noticed that I suffered from nearly constant diarrhea. This led to a series of general practice doctor's appointments and a verdict of irritable bowel syndrome and recommendation to add a lot more fiber into my diet.
I met my future wife over the summer of 1989 and we got pregnant a few months later (I'll leave the details for another entry :) ). In December we decided to get married and set the wedding date for April.
All through this period we suffered a variety of crises some minor / some major as I worked on my master's degree while working full time and she worked 3 part time jobs. Throw in a bad case of flu (for her) and a case of the chicken pox (also for her) and we have a very stressful several months.
All this time I had felt very run down and just totally beat. Not unexpected given all that we were doing. Only I hadn't realized that the level of tiredness I experienced was abnormal. I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes without getting terrible headaches. Nine hours of sleep wasn't nearly enough. I was extremely pale, etc.
One day that I wasn't feeling particularly worn out, I went down to give blood at a blood drive. The hemoglobin screen indicated that I was severely anemic and the technician recommended that I see a doctor in the very near future (though they didn't actually tell me why).
My doctor conducted a blood test and found that I was severely anemic and conducted another battery of tests (fecal occult blood in my stool). So he referred me to a GI doctor. I went through several office visits and described my symptoms. I omitted night-sweats because I didn't think they were related and my doctor didn't ask because he didn't want to ask leading questions (duh! on both our parts).
After 2-3 weeks of diagnostics procedures (which did not include a colonoscopy) they hadn't found the cause of the bleeding but knew it was in my digestive tract. We were down to the week before my wedding and they were down to just two scheduled diagnostics: colonoscopy and exploratory surgery. Luckily on the Tuesday before the wedding, they performed the colonoscopy and found my Crohn's Disease - so I didn't require the exploratory surgery.
From that time until my bowel resection (8 years) I had good days and bad days. But generally I felt worse over time. By the end of this period of this period, I felt bad most of the day and almost everyday. When I say bad, I mean pins & needles in my legs, pain and cramping through my entire gut, constant diarrhea, severe cramping every time I ate, having to get up 2-3 times to use the toilet every night, extreme fatigue, and taking medications 4 times a day on a regular schedule sometimes requiring 64 or more pills in a day. It got so bad that I had to take medications to counter the side effects of medications that I had to take to counter the side effects of therapeutic medications (e.g. prednisone).
The surgery relieved all of these symptoms so much that I actually felt a sense of loss. Although I felt very much better, I got to stop doing all of the work I put into remaining functional and that made me into a different person.
I bring all this up because I want to talk about that in my next entry.
More than a year earlier, this my mother noticed that I suffered from nearly constant diarrhea. This led to a series of general practice doctor's appointments and a verdict of irritable bowel syndrome and recommendation to add a lot more fiber into my diet.
I met my future wife over the summer of 1989 and we got pregnant a few months later (I'll leave the details for another entry :) ). In December we decided to get married and set the wedding date for April.
All through this period we suffered a variety of crises some minor / some major as I worked on my master's degree while working full time and she worked 3 part time jobs. Throw in a bad case of flu (for her) and a case of the chicken pox (also for her) and we have a very stressful several months.
All this time I had felt very run down and just totally beat. Not unexpected given all that we were doing. Only I hadn't realized that the level of tiredness I experienced was abnormal. I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes without getting terrible headaches. Nine hours of sleep wasn't nearly enough. I was extremely pale, etc.
One day that I wasn't feeling particularly worn out, I went down to give blood at a blood drive. The hemoglobin screen indicated that I was severely anemic and the technician recommended that I see a doctor in the very near future (though they didn't actually tell me why).
My doctor conducted a blood test and found that I was severely anemic and conducted another battery of tests (fecal occult blood in my stool). So he referred me to a GI doctor. I went through several office visits and described my symptoms. I omitted night-sweats because I didn't think they were related and my doctor didn't ask because he didn't want to ask leading questions (duh! on both our parts).
After 2-3 weeks of diagnostics procedures (which did not include a colonoscopy) they hadn't found the cause of the bleeding but knew it was in my digestive tract. We were down to the week before my wedding and they were down to just two scheduled diagnostics: colonoscopy and exploratory surgery. Luckily on the Tuesday before the wedding, they performed the colonoscopy and found my Crohn's Disease - so I didn't require the exploratory surgery.
From that time until my bowel resection (8 years) I had good days and bad days. But generally I felt worse over time. By the end of this period of this period, I felt bad most of the day and almost everyday. When I say bad, I mean pins & needles in my legs, pain and cramping through my entire gut, constant diarrhea, severe cramping every time I ate, having to get up 2-3 times to use the toilet every night, extreme fatigue, and taking medications 4 times a day on a regular schedule sometimes requiring 64 or more pills in a day. It got so bad that I had to take medications to counter the side effects of medications that I had to take to counter the side effects of therapeutic medications (e.g. prednisone).
The surgery relieved all of these symptoms so much that I actually felt a sense of loss. Although I felt very much better, I got to stop doing all of the work I put into remaining functional and that made me into a different person.
I bring all this up because I want to talk about that in my next entry.
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