A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine go Down, Not with This Medicine.

Keeping in mind that my diagnosis was way back in 1989, there weren't the same treatments that there are today.  There were only a few options to help heal the damage caused by the disease.  Surgery to remove the damaged areas of bowel was a last ditch effort.  Healing the damage using the medications available at the time was the first choice.

I was put on Salofalk, which is a 5-ASA drug used for combating the inflammation in the bowel.  I took it in pill form, eight a day, and also in liquid suppositories at bedtime.  Usually suppositories are used to clean out the bowel, so you have the urge to go quite badly.  When this feeling occurs you usually can give into it, but with these suppositories, to get the healing effect you can't give in, you have to hold it in.  It was very uncomfortable and an experience I had to go through every night for six months.

Imuran was another medication that I was given daily.  It is an immunosuppressive agent used to suppress the bodies immune system.  Crohn's Disease is a disease of the immune system attacking the digestive tract, so this medication stopped the immune system from attacking my bowel causing more damage.  It was effective but opens you up to catching any bug that is around because you can't fight them off.

Prednisone was the worst medication that I had to take.  It is a corticosteroid and is also helps with the inflammation caused by the disease, it is also an immunosuppressive.  It had the worst side-effects of any medication that I have ever taken so far in my life.  It improves your appetite, causes water retention which makes you appear like you have gained a lot of weight, makes you feel lightheaded, nervous or agitated, sweaty and flushed, you can have skin problems from it and a "moon face".  This is when your face becomes almost completely round.  It makes your face puffy-looking as if you had just come from the dentist from having your wisdom teeth removed.  I also had hallucinations.  Those and the anxiety were the worst.

I was also put on a couple of antibiotics but the worst one was Flagyl.  It is used specifically for abdominal infections.  It caused "Thrush" which is a yeast infection in the mouth.  After the many long months of being in the hospital when I was finally able to go home, my sister and her husband were going to take me to the cottage to be with my family for a couple of weeks,  My mouth and tongue had been hurting and very sensitive for a couple of days but when I woke up that morning it was so much worse.  I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and looked at my tongue.  It, my gums and the inside of my cheeks were completely black!  I flipped right out and called my Gastro to find out what the heck was going on.  His secretary told me he wanted me to come in as soon as I could, so I dressed and packed in a hurry, called my sister to come and get me early and headed to his office.  When I got there I opened my mouth, stuck out my tongue and asked him "What now?, what is this?".  Of course he smiled at me like he always did, and told me it was thrush, a yeast infection.  He wrote me out a prescription, and as usual I asked him what it tasted like.  He laughed and said he didn't know, and that where this medication usually goes there aren't any taste buds.  That last part went right over my head and I didn't understand what he was talking about until the script was filled and I was in the car on the way to the cottage.  I opened the bag that it was in, read the package and then it hit me.  The script was for vaginal suppositories for vaginal yeast infections and the directions on the box said that I had to suck on them like lozenges.  YUCK!
When we got to the cottage and my family found out that I had to suck on vaginal yeast infection suppositories, they laughed whenever I had to take a dose. 
Now there is a liquid medication for this problem called Nystatin.  Believe me, it tastes much better. :)

If He Wasn't So Cute...

When my Mom and I got to the Guelph General Hospital I couldn't believe how fast things started to move.  I had been hoping and praying that something would finally happen and now that it was, it was going a wee bit fast for me.

Nurses were coming at me from all directions, asking questions, taking my vitals and then came the i.v..  I was so afraid of needles that in public school I had to be held down on the floor in the nurse's room just to be given a shot.  That was years before but the fear never went away.  I felt so stupid having to hold my mom's hand through it, but that was the only way they were going to get that needle in me.  It didn't help that I was so dehydrated, so it took more than one try to get a keeper.  To this day, after 24 years of dealing with this "Monster" I still freak out when the letters I and V are used too close together.

My Gastro had ordered all of these things to be done to me before he could come up and check me out for himself.  I had x-rays, an ultrasound and thought I saw every inch of the hospital that first day.  When he arrived he looked kind of sad.  He said I was really sick and that I was going to have to stay for a while for more tests.  I looked at my overnight bag and knew I hadn't packed enough.  He still wasn't sure what it was that was wrong, but was leaning really strongly towards "Crohn's".  The colonoscopy that was moved up from two weeks away would diagnosis whatever it was.

I started to try and tell him that I really didn't need to be there, that I could just take some time off work and rest, and that I would eat my veggies, and even wheaties if that would help, if I could just go home.  I still remember his face when I was rambling on like a terrified little kindergardener.  He just smiled at me.  It was a beautiful smile, but it pissed me off.  He said I had to be fed through a tube in my nose because I was malnourished, and I was in the best place I could be.  How could being fed through a tube or being in the hospital be the best place for me?  I even tried to tell him that I thought I was pretty sure I was all better, but he wouldn't have any of it, just smiled that white smile, said he would be right back and left the room.

The funny thing about the whole freaking out session that I had, was that I do remember calming down enough for a minute to comment to my mom on how good-looking he was.  But hey! I was still a girl. When he did come back he had gloves on, was followed by two nurses carrying a whole bunch of freaky-looking packages, and started unwrapping them.  I saw a tube of lubricant and was wondering what that was for, when he started to rub some of it on this pink tubing.  A nurse was trying to put a straw in my mouth from a glass of water which distracted me long enough for him to get the tube near my nose.  I looked him straight in the eyes and asked if it was going to hurt.  Of course he said no, it just might be a bit uncomfortable for a minute.  I drank the water as he pushed it into my nose and down my throat into my stomach.  The look on my mom's face told me I was lucky I wasn't watching.  I gagged a few times, but he just kept on smiling.  Finally it was taped in place, I was hooked up to my pump and my first meal was being served.

He said I had been through enough for one day, and told me that I could relax now and that he would come back to see me the next day.  One of the nurse's gave me a shot for pain, which I had to hold my mom's hand for again,  and as she left the room I remember saying to them "If he wasn't so cute I wouldn't have stayed".

But that first night, alone in my room, it dawned on me that this man had probably just saved my life.