Here it is: a week ago, I went to the doctor, and he diagnosed me with colitis. For anyone that doesn’t know, colitis is basically when your colon becomes inflamed for some reason, and you suffer from almost uncontrollable and pretty frequent diarrhea. Symptoms can also include fever, which I haven’t had, and stomach pain, which I only had a day or 2 leading up to my doctor’s visit last week. They also include blood in your stool, which I seemed to have in boatloads…so much so that the doctor also said I had become anemic.
What started all of this? I’m not exactly sure, but I 1st noticed an increase in, ummm, bowel movement frequency the week Krissy, Jacob, and I got home from the hospital. Why is that important? Well, according to the great mindf*** that is WebMD, the exact cause of colitis is unknown, but the disease is associated with stress. I had just gotten home from living in a hospital for 2 weeks, where at times I wasn’t sure if my wife was going to make it and where my newborn son (our 1st child, mind you) lived in a plastic tube. Did I have stress? Do a frog’s legs bump him in the a** when he hops? What a great punishment for worrying about the 2 things in the world you care about the most!
The 1st picture that comes up when you do a Google image search of "stress"...thanks, Google!
So, after a week or so of constantly p***ing and bleeding out of my a**, I finally caved and went to one of those walk-in doctor’s offices that was up the street from me…only they couldn’t tell me much other than, yes, you are bleeding out your behind and s****ing quite frequently, sir, and that I needed to see a specialist…oh, and that I had to have lab work done on my stool. If you’re looking for a good time, nothing beats having to take a dump (or 3) in a grocery bag and sifting through your own blood-covered excrement to fill a bunch of test tube thingies to bring back to a lab. (By the way, those tests revealed not much more than the facts that, again, I can poop, and there was blood in it…thanks, science!)
After that doctor’s visit, I made a beeline for the pharmacy to stock up on Imodium. At this point, I have bought enough Imodium that I should officially be a stockholder. The Imodium did help a little bit, in that instead of running to the bathroom 10-12 times a day I was only running to the bathroom 6-8 times a day, but it was like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. (Also, I later read that Imodium can actually do more harm than good if your colitis is ulcerative colitis…thanks again, science!)
In the couple of weeks from that 1st doctor’s visit to my appointment with the specialist, I mostly felt fine. I would maybe get some gas/stomach cramps right before I had to go the bathroom, but I would excuse myself to the lavatory, take a crap, and then I would feel good as new…back to business as usual. It was mostly just the annoyance of having to go to the bathroom as often as I was…which sometimes transformed into actual fear. One week, I even brought an extra pair of underwear to work because what if I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time? What in the f*** would I have been supposed to do then?
No, David...no, it wasn't.
But as I touched on before, the day or 2 leading up to my 2nd appointment I actually wasn’t feeling too hot. No fever or anything like that, but I definitely had some more prevalent stomach achiness coupled with a lack of energy (from the anemia, in hindsight). Thank God for Lialda, the drug the specialist prescribed me. I take 4 of those horse pills every morning, and since I started I have definitely seen improvement: no stomach achiness, a decrease in bowel movements (only 2-4 times a day), more solid s***, and a slight decrease in blood. I’ve also been taking an iron supplement, so my energy level has been much closer to my normal level.
But those steps in the right direction have made me a little greedy. I’ve gotten a little better. Now, I want to be all better…like all-the-way better…like now. Unfortunately, I won’t know exactly what’s going on in there until my colonoscopy (speaking of other fun adventures), which is about 2 and a half weeks away. Until then, all I can do is keep taking my meds and try to pay attention to what I’m eating. If this colitis winds up being a long-term thing, my diet is going to be more bland than a goat’s…no dairy, no raw fruits or veggies, no whole grains, no beans, no nuts, no peanut butter, no ice cream, nothing spicy, no chocolate, no coffee, no soda, no alcohol…at least I can eat plain chicken, eggs, and oatmeal I guess. Eat s***, WebMD!
At the end of the day, I’m not talking about cancer or anything like that. My symptoms have been mild to moderate, and they should be manageable…especially once this colonoscopy shows the root cause of it all. So, I can deal with this, but it’s definitely a change for me. I used to think of myself as a tank. Aside from a cold, I would hardly ever get sick. Even after all this, I don’t even have a primary care doctor yet. And to be honest, there’s a little bit of a pity party going on here too. I’m a good person. I pay my taxes. I help old grannies reach stuff on the top shelf at the grocery store. So, why me? In fact, let’s branch this out to my wife, who’s health was in a much more serious state a month ago than mine is now. Why us? What exactly did we do to deserve this? But I’m usually better off leaving those types of questions to someone else…s*** if I know anyway.
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