Still No Good

Things are still not going swimmingly with the guts.  I finally broke down and made an appointment with my gut doc.  I go see him in 5 days.  These promise to be the longest 5 days in my life.  My guts, while they improved slightly with the prednisone, have gone back to their old ways.  My gut is distended and tender and I’m borderline miserable.  Everything sure points to a partial blockage of the small intestine, which is not a good thing at all.  As long as this problem has been going on, even if it is only a slight blockage, surgery is going to be the only answer.  Jeez, that would be a crummy way to spend 3-4 hours.  And then all that recovery time.  I’d rather avoid the whole thing.  Of course if it came down to a choice of staying like this or going through the weeks of recovery, I’ll choose the recovery.  Prayers are very welcome and even requested.  In fact I’m starting to get a little nauseous at the moment and that really is a very bad sign.  I gotta go!

Slacker

Wow!  I have been slacking big time. It’s been almost a full month since I posted anything here.  But hey, I do have an excuse.  You’ll have to decide if it’s a good excuse or not.

About 2 weeks ago things starting going all wrong with my guts.  As you know, I was in the hospital 7 months ago with a twisted/obstructed/perforated small intestine.  It was quite a painful experience.  Only a week after being released, I was back in the hospital for extreme malnutrition.  Well it all started again.

My guts got very painful and the belly very distended and things just weren’t working the way they are supposed to.  I stopped eating for 4 days due to the severe discomfort (and the fact that I felt like I was going to pop).  When I talked to my doc, his first though was of another bowel obstruction.  That was a little bit of a comfort since it was what I was thinking, too.  But rather than do anything rash like send me to the ER and slice me open like a holiday turkey, he decided to try me on a course of steroids.  Steroids, for those who don’t know, are the arch nemesis of Crohn’s disease.  Thankfully it cleared things up in just a matter of days.  So it turns out that there is not a full blockage, though there is question as to whether or not there is a partial blockage or at least one in the making.  Fortunately they don’t typically do surgery for partial blockages—they just hope for them to resolve themselves.  I have to monitor things closely for the next few weeks to make sure that nothing gets worse.  

So thank you all for those who prayed for a speedy, non-surgical resolution to this problem.  I know the prayers work.  I am walking, talking, living, breathing proof of that.  I am indebted to each and every one of you.

Just a note:  Steroids are a problem for me.  I have taken so many for so long that I have severe osteoporosis which has led to 18 broken bones in just 6 short years.  So I can’t stay on them for extended periods of time.  Not to mention the fact that my body becomes dependent on them very quickly and it makes it extremely difficult for me to stop them when the time comes.  So while they work great for short periods of time when things go haywire, I can’t do this too often or risk the chance of hurting myself worse.  Drugs suck.