Crohn's Disease: My Rant of the Day 3/21/99 Warning! This ain't gonna be pretty. If you're easily offended or grossed out, or have an overactive sense of empathy, you'll want to click away now! This disease really sucks.
What greater torment for a woman with a love of food in all its sensuous glory
than a chronic condition that makes eating a process so painful that the anticipation of a meal has gone from mouth-watering delight to gut-wrenching agony?
Sometimes I think that if I have to endure one more day with a stomach ache I am going to have to commit
either homicide or suicide. I try really hard to go on with my daily routines, but sometimes my side hurts so
much that even the simplest tasks make me want to scream and concentration is impossible. These are the
days I'll sit in front of my computer, typing and clicking away; reading, writing, ranting...anything to take the focus off the pain in my gut. Today is one of those days.
I know the damaged area of my intestine is so bad it requires surgery, and my GI doc would prefer sooner to
later. But I've finally started school, and am getting to the GOOD parts now, so I really would hate to mess it
all up by ending up on medical leave for 6 or 8 weeks and having to get back in a new track to start where I left
off. I've already been late one day and absent another because of this bastard of a disease - and I've only
been attending for 3 weeks.The timing just couldn't be any shittier. Worst of all, I don't want to admit that I probably can't make it right now...two more months like this might just do me in.
On Friday, I made the colossal mistake of wearing jeans to school. Anything that's tight around my waist is a
definite no-no during a flare-up but I was hopeful. As it turned out "in denial" would probably be a more
appropriate assessment. With blatant disregard for the past day' illness, I wore them even though sitting was
slightly less than excruciating as my waistband squeezed my inflamed and constricted intestine. At lunchtime
I took a dose of Prevalite, to spare me the inevitable dash out of class that would come 30 minutes after we
returned. Probably mistake number two; I never did have a single productive trip to the restroom that day or night.
I went ahead with my plans for Saturday morning, visiting the mall and window shopping. I was smart enough to wear stretchy leggings though - ha! Of course I couldn't resist trying at least
something on, even though I was certain to feel that sinking depression that comes when I look in the mirror and see the huge monstrosity
of a fat girl life on a daily dose of Prednisone has created. Well, not only was I as fat as I knew I'd be, but I
looked somewhat pregnant. I thought it was just because I'd eaten lunch at the Food Court and was bloated.
By the time we left the mall, I was really hurting, and glad to get home to my own bathroom. Where I sat.
For a long time. And nothing happened. Painfully and with bloodshed. Nothing happened upon our return from the Equinox celebration late last night. And what little happened today
was a small victory only realized by spending many torturous hours sitting, willing intestinal motility while
howling and rocking back and forth with my fist shoved into my belly at strategic points to help my stupid gut do its job, barely. Painfully and with bloodshed.
I'm pretty sure at this point I have a partial obstruction although I reserve my right to at least one more day's
denial. I'm scheduled to see my GI doctor on Tuesday, I think I can make it 'til then if I take it really easy and
maybe go on a liquid diet again. But then the fun begins! He'll refer me to a surgeon, who will either admit me
a day before surgery is scheduled or have me prepare at home, which entails a thorough intestinal cleansing
by way of drinking gallons of a disgusting fluid that flushes every trace of food from the entire digestive tract.
Yep. Painfully and with bloodshed, of course. That doesn't even sound half-bad anymore, if it means that one day soon I can resume a normal life. Here's the part where I apologize to everyone I will disappoint because I am unable to keep my promises to them while I'm this ill. It grieves me to say that although I'd like nothing more than to be able to honor any
commitments I've made, at this point it's become a matter of survival and something's got to give. My work
ethic remains as strong as ever, but if I don't take care of my health there will be no body to carry out the
tasks...and I have this family I'd like to enjoy and grow old with, which won't happen if I compromise my
physical well-being in an attempt to assuage my guilt over obligations I made in all sincerity, if a bit optimistically.
Pissed off doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling today about this disease, the pain it's causing me,
the side-effects of treatment, and the way it's making me look like a flake. I'm sick to death of my life revolving
around agonizing trips to the bathroom that make it nearly impossible to do anything according to schedule.
I'm tired of having to go hungry all day long just so I won't have to worry about becoming too sick to keep a
commitment. Or worse yet, arriving somewhere and feeling that clenching in my gut sending me running for the
restroom, from whence I may return 30 minutes later sweating and white as a sheet from the pain. How attractive!
I kind of resent that due to the natural course of an Inflammatory Bowel Disease such as Crohn's, I and other
sufferers spend many uncomfortable moments simply trying to explain our condition without embarassment or
shame. It's not like describing heart disease or cancer or Lupus or MS. With the primary affected function
being digestion & elimination, even the best attempts to "keep it clinical" just can't make it any less distasteful
a subject than it truly is. Unlike the aforementioned safe-to-discuss and serious health prolems, IBD just
doesn't garner much in the way of understanding or sympathy, and attempting to further explain just makes things worse all around.
For Pete's sake you'd think since every animal in the world has to take a shit sometime, and every human knows just how awful afflictions of the gut can be, this decidedly juvenile
attitude wouldn't persist. That would require giving the predominantly ignorant general population more credit than they deserve, however. So for all those people who may encounter someone living with and trying to manage IBD, here's a flat-out bald-faced no-holds-barred list of things that people like me have to put up with and might have trouble discussing: Don't Ask, and Don't Make Us Tell!
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