Hospital Bound

It was near the end of June in 1989, I was at work feeling better than I had in years.  Just knowing that I was going to have a colonoscopy in two weeks,  was going to find out what had been going on in my "gut" and that my new Gastro. believed me, had an incredible effect on my spirit and body.
I had been out running errands when I got a call from the office.  They told me that my Gastro had called and that I was to return the call when I got back.

There were two more destinations that I had to get to before I could get back and call.  I was so curious about why he had called, I ended up distracted and missed roads I was to go down, and buildings I was supposed to stop at.   Because of the fact that everyone thought my problems were psychosomatic, my mind started to play tricks on me, and I imagined calling his office only to find that he talked to my family doctor, who told him that I was crazy, so he had decided after thinking about it he wasn't going to take on my case.  By the time I returned to work I was so worked up and believed that was going to happen, that I was afraid to call him back.  Thinking that I was going to be in pain for the rest of my life, and that no one would ever believe me, I sat in the bathroom for a half an hour and cried

My immediate boss Leanne found me in there and told me to just call, that it could be important.  So I went into my office, shut and locked the door, sat down at my desk and shakily dialed his office's number.  When I told the receptionist who was calling, she got him right on the line.  He told me that he got my blood test results back that morning, that they were really messed up and that he couldn't believe that I was actually at work, walking around and functioning properly.  He told me to get home, pack a bag and head up to the hospital to be admitted.  I was in shock.

I cleaned up the mascara and tears that had stained my face, and went into the big bosses office, to tell him what was going on, that I had to leave, and that I didn't know when I would be back.  I found my friend Richard at his drafting table and asked him if he could give me a ride home.  When I got there my Dad was just coming home, and I told my parents what was going on, and asked if one of them could take me to the hospital.  I stood there as they argued amongst themselves about who had more important things to do, and which one was going to be able to take me.  Again, still, I wasn't important.  I went to my room and packed.

It was somehow decided that my Mom would take me, so he got in the car and headed to the hospital where I hoped my journey to a diagnosis and back to health would truly begin.    

I Found My Hero!

I had been taking the "Digest" pills that the Iridologist had given me for about a month, and I was getting worse not better.  After consulting my Mom and my other practitioners they all told me the same thing.  They said that I could possibly be having a "Healing Crisis".  That is when during the healing process, your symptoms get worse, when the body is getting rid of all of the toxins that have been stored up.  When this process is over you generally will improve.

But my "Gut Instincts" were working over time again, I had a feeling that there wouldn't be any improvement or healing from this.  I thought that the ingredients in the pills were just feeding my "Monster" and that he was getting stronger.  I missed more work in that one month than I had in the four years I had been working at that job.  I gave it more time like they suggested, but felt it wouldn't matter how much time I waited, I felt so sick, and I only weighed eighty-five pounds, I thought I was going to die.

My Dr. and Mom were concerned as well, and he finally called to make me an appointment with a Gastroenterologist.  I couldn't wait to go.  The two weeks dragged by, but the day finally came.  My Mom brought me to the appointment.  The minute I saw him I knew he would be able to help me, being incredibly good looking didn't hurt either!

He asked me a lot of questions about my symptoms, my pain, medications I was taking, and my diet.  He threw out the antacid pills that my family doctor's partner gave me and said they were useless.  I was then examined.  He felt the glands on my neck, and when he pushed on the lower left side of my abdomen I almost jumped off the table it hurt so much.  We all went into his office to talk.  He said he thought that I could have Crohn's Disease or Colon Cancer.  I said  "I'll take that crone thing" meaning that I really didn't want to have Cancer.  What he said to me next frightened me.  He said that many of his Crohn's patients commonly wish that it was terminal because they really suffer a lot, it's painful and there is no cure.  Before he finished his sentence, I stood up and said  "Wow, I feel so much better all of the sudden, so maybe I'm okay now".   I looked at my Mom and sat right back down, joking around like that is just a defence mechanism for me or else when I'm nervous or afraid I would end up crying.  His secretary scheduled me for a Colonoscopy (he didn't really get into what that was all about) and on the way home we stopped to have all of my blood tests done.

It was two weeks until the Colonoscopy, and I was finally ready for answers and treatment.



 

Are The Eyes Windows? You Bet They Are!

The visits with an Iridologist back when I was 19 years old, before my Crohn's diagnosis and the recommendations given were the beginning of the end of my quest for answers. Going this route was the best thing that could have happened at that time. Every aspect of my life had been infected by this "Monster" and I was at an all time low, but about to hear something that no one else had said to me that would give me the confidence to keep fighting it.

This specialist agreed with my intuition that these mysterious and miserable symptoms were related to my Digestive Tract. Having someone tell me that they believed my "Gut Instincts" meant more than you could possibly imagine. She didn't think that I was a nutso attention seeker or anything else, she knew that there was a "Monster". She was on my side. She did what I wanted my Doctor, family and friends to do. She looked at me, really looked, but more importantly she listened to me and wanted to help.

If you looked at me back then you probably would have thought I was anorexic like some people did, or that I was very ill. I was five feet, five inches tall and weighed under one hundred pounds. I was under eighty pounds when I was diagnosed. I was trying to do all of the right things for better health, I was eating all of the right foods. But eating was very unpleasant experience. Food tasted great but minutes later I would be doubled over in pain, and it passed through me so fast that it wouldn't be in my body long enough to absorb any nutrients. From my visits with the iridologist I would find out that all of the so-called good food I was injesting wasn't doing me any good at all and was just irritating my bowels more than anything else. I was so ready for answers and ready to stop faking how I felt.

I was going to work everyday even though I had no energy and the pain was inscruciating, but I didn't want anyone to think that I was slacking off. I tried to do everything all of my friends were doing, I didn't want to be left behind. I had learned a long time ago when all of my test results kept coming back normal not to complain anymore about how I felt. Everyone around me was as sick of hearing about it as I was of living it, so I kept my mouth shut as much as possible. That didn't stop people from talking about me behind my back, or even to my face about how I was upsetting them. I stayed over night at a friend's house one night, and in the morning while I was getting dressed she took a picture of me. We didn't have digital cameras back then, but when she got the roll back she sat me down, showed me the pictures and told me that I was thin enough, I had made my point, got all of the attention I wanted and should start eating again. I was so hurt. My "Monster" had been around for years, and I couldn't believe people that I cared about, and that were supposed to care about me could be so cruel, deaf to what I had confided in them and blind.

But now I had my Mom and my Iridologist on my team! After analyzing the characteristics of my irises she told me that there were signs of inflammation in my bowel and that there was a good chance that a duct that lead to the gall bladder was blocked. I was shocked that all she had done was look at my eyes and could tell that my Digestive Tract wasn't working properly, and yet my Doctor had run all sorts of tests with no signs of any problems at all. Was he just not running the right tests? She gave me some all-natural pills to aid in digestion, I was to take two of them a half an hour before meals.

This was to be the start of a new healthier pain-free life for me! I was so excited I could barely sleep that night and couldn't wait to start my new regime.

There's Always An Alternative - Medicines

After I was released from the hospital for the blood infection, I was more concerned about my health than ever. My "Monster" was causing so much chaos in my body, yet it was being very sneaky and playing "Hide-and-Seek" with the Doctors. I was determined to find out what was wrong with me, so determined that I would have tried anything, and I almost did.

I was 19 at the time, and all I wanted was to be normal like everyone else.

I had been meditating on my pain for years now, sitting quietly on my bedroom floor, closing my eyes and trying to locate where the pain was. After some practice, I could see my body in my mind's eye and the painful areas would light up, almost glow. I knew that more than one area hurt. After the laparoscope was done a year before, the pelvic pain was completely gone. The endometriosis was the source of it. But I still had to figure out what was causing the pain above my belly-button, in my lower back and abdomen. One down, three to go.

I couldn't wait for my Doctor to believe me. I had to search for the answers on my own. The pain was almost unbearable, yet I wasn't given anything for it because "pain medication won't help pain that is all in your head". I took out books from the library and tried to teach myself Biofeedback techniques to try to desensitise myself to the pain, but I found it almost impossible to do. I decided to look into some unconventional healing methods. I was one hundred percent sure that my digestive tract was the source of most of my problems due to the pain being worse after eating, and having everything that I did eat go right through me. I was desperate and under ninety pounds. If I could have somehow found a way to help my symptoms I would have been so incredibly happy.

I started with buying some Healing Crystals and a book about them. Supposedly if you put the right type of crystal on the proper place, the power of them can heal what ails you. Every night for months, I would lay on my bed with the crystals all over my body, listening to a Relaxation CD of the sounds of the ocean. I also carried them in a pouch around my neck for further protection during the day.

My Mom came into my room to say good night to me one evening, and found me covered with my crystals. I think it was then that she realized that I was really suffering since I was trying to heal myself in private, if I had been faking I wouldn't have been trying to cure myself, or keeping up the pretense while I was alone. Until then she hadn't believed that there was anything wrong with me either. She had been seeing a Chinese Herbalist for some health issues of her own and suggested that I go see him too. I figured it wouldn't hurt and that maybe a new set of eyeballs on the situation could get to the bottom of things. That was a really interesting experience. He did a complete exam and thought that my pancreas was sluggish or that a duct leading to it may be blocked. He wanted to strengthen and unblock the flow of my "chi", which is the life energy of the body. Accupuncture was done three times a week, and he made up herbal tea packages for me to drink. They contained dried barks, mushrooms, leaves and berries. I boiled the herbs in a pot until there was only a half a cup of liquid left, actually saying liquid is being generous, it looked more like sludge and tasted just about how you would imagine sludge would taste, YUCKY! I couldn't believe that I was paying someone to make me drink that foul-flavoured mixture. By the time that I was supposed to show signs of improvement I hadn't felt any better so I moved on.

These treatments help many millions of people around the globe everyday, and I would highly recommend anyone that is not getting the help they want or need from Western Medicines, or want their treatment to have a more holistic approach to consider using these techniques.

The hunt was on again for answers. I never stopped going to my Family Doctor and pleading with him to help me, but a frustrating cycle would occur. The more tests I asked him to requisition for me, the more the results would be returned normal, and the more he would believe I was a hypochondriac, so I continued down the road with Alternatives. First I went to a Naturopathic Doctor and learned how to improve my diet and was introduced to some botanical medicines. They deal more with symptoms and the body as a whole.

I also had appointments with an Iridologist. They look at and analyze only the iris to detect health issues that you could have now, or that could possibly occur in the future. A picture of your iris is taken and turned into a slide. To see your five or so foot tall eye blown up on a wall is quite the experience, let me tell you! Mine looked kind of like a blue cratered surface of the moon! When reading the slides they can tell many things from the flecks, density of the colour and locations of different markings. I had a gold fleck that was called a "Mother's Jewel". The appearance of this fleck is supposed to mean that your Mother is very caring, worried and concerned about you. This shocked me and made me feel defeated all at the same time. It was like going to a psychic but realizing that they are only telling you what you want to hear. I didn't believe that about my Mom at first. Why would she have been worried about me if she thought that I was faking it or a hypochondriac? But then I looked at her as she was sitting beside me, and she was nodding "yes" at me with tears in her eyes. I never doubted her belief in my pain again, and I never loved her that much as I did in that moment.

My Mica

Personalize your own scrapbook design

Adorable, isn't she?

Thirteen years ago I wanted to adopt a pet. My bunny had passed away about two years before, and I missed having a little one around. My boyfriend at the time suggested a cat but I wasn't sure about it. My family had pets while I was growing up, but never a cat. I remembered my Dad said that cats scratch up your furniture and that they aren't as affectionate as dogs, but I thought why not give a cat a try? I lived on the top floor of an apartment building and I didn't think it was big enough for a dog, so a cat it was! There was a family in Waterloo that had kittens that needed homes, so my boyfriend and I made an appointment and headed over there. I sat down on the carpet watching these little black kittens playing and my heart melted. They were so adorable and the noises they made were so sweet.

One waddled over and sat infront of me and just stared, and then she fell over, lol. She was mine! We put her in the basket that I brought and couldn't wait to get her home! She needed some supplies so we stopped at a pet store. I'm not one of those people that like to dress up their pets. I don't know why, but things like that have never appealed to me. I do however like collars, and Mica has quite a few, I have even made some of themcrocheted and braided some of them for her.

In the early days of our relationship I knew that it was made in heaven. Whenever I would lay down she would lay on my chest and it seemed like she was trying to put her little arms around my neck. She would nuzzle me with her tiny nose. She still does it but now she can get her arms all the way around my neck. She followed me everywhere, taking the garbage down the hall, from room to room and even into the bathroom. Once in there she would try to get up on my lap, but she was too small so I would pick her up and put her there. Having Crohn's I can spend a lot of time in the bathroom. As she got bigger she would just jump up on her own. She is so smart too, whenever I touch the toilet paper she jumps down,lol.

If I sleep too long in the morning she wakes me up for her breakfast, and at 6 o'clock p.m.she will come find me and chirp at me to feed her supper. She gets treats a couple times a day. Sometimes she will let me know if she wants some, or I will just grab them and shake the bag. For some reason she likes to eat them on the end of my bed, and as soon as she hears the bag that's where she goes. She has to sit for her treats and knows it. We have been working on shaking a paw for them for a while now, and she is doing really well.

First Hospitalization

Since the Endometriosis diagnosis only seemed to help my pelvic pain, not the back or abdominal pain that I was experiencing, I knew that it wasn't the "Monster", and I would have to keep on searching for answers.

I was getting pretty upset and angry that my doctor, friends and family thought I should be cured since the lapro surgery. My boyfriend at the time called me "a drag" when I didn't feel well enough to go out with friends.

One night I was feeling so well that we went with friends to a patio for a couple of drinks. I found out that beer really made my stomach worse, so I drank Rye most of the time. My doctor wouldn't give me medication for the pain, because he didn't think anything was wrong, so sometimes when the pain would get really bad I would drink just to dull it. That night it was really warm out and I was wearing a tank top. All of the sudden I felt really cold and then my teeth started to chatter. My boyfriend's parents were away for the weekend and I was planning on staying at his house. We were going to have some friends over for dinner the next night, and I wanted to feel well enough to do it, so I asked him if we could go home, because feeling chilled like I was I thought that I might be getting a cold.

When we got to his house, he made me a hot cup of tea and I got into bed. I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was 2:30 in the morning. I had to use the washroom so I got out of bed, but fell onto the carpet. I didn't have enough energy or strength to hold up my own body. His bedroom was in the basement, and he and his sister were listening to music quite loud upstairs. I tried to yell, but it came out like a whisper. I didn't know what was wrong and I didn't know what to do. I looked around and found one of his rugby cleats, and threw it up at the door. I landed only a few feet away from me. Then I grabbed a baseball and tried again. It hit the door and rolled back to me. I kept on doing this until I heard the volume of the music turn down, and threw it again. I heard his footsteps so I knew that he heard it, and when he saw me on the floor I told him I really needed to get to the bathroom.

He helped me get there, asking me what was going on. I told him that I had no idea. He had to help me with my p.j. bottoms, and just as I was going to sit down I told him I was going to throw up. He plopped me down and grabbed the garbage can, just as I started going out of both ends at the same time. When I was done I said that I really needed to go to the hospital. I was terrified, I thought I was going to die. He got me dressed, and off we went.

The Emergency Room was pretty empty at that time of the morning, and they brought me in right away. They took blood, and when the results came back the Dr. came in with two petri dishes. He showed me one with zig-zag lines of white stuff on a reddish-looking gel typed base, and told me that it was a positive result for an infection. Then he showed me the other one that had the white stuff covering the whole dish, top and all. He said that was from my blood and that I was going sceptic. He admitted me and put me on a whole slew of antibiotics to get rid of it. Since I was already in the hospital I asked if they could run some more tests to find out what my "Monster" was. I had 3 barium tests that all came back negative. Not only did everyone already think I was nuts, but all of these negative tests weren't helping my cause. Within a week I was released and sent on my way to continue living in pain.

What An Inspiration!

I have a friend that really inspires me, and I have never met her face to face.
That is one of the things that I really enjoy about Twitter, being able to meet people from all over the world that you would never have been able to meet in any other way.
I have a lot of Twitter friends that are incredible people, but she is different.

We all have our crosses to bear, those things in our lives that we feel we have to deal with and overcome. Whether it is a dysfunctional family upbringing, a traumatic event, a mental or physical illness etc. These issues can be very hard to get past.

My friend has Cancer, and she is my Champion.
She doesn't feel sorry for herself, or sit around feeling defeated, she has fought it the whole way with surgery and treatments. Even when her body is weakened from her treatments she still thinks of other people and their needs. If you were to read her tweets you wouldn't even know that she is sick. She is a truckers advocate, is passionate about the plight of the soldiers fighting for our freedoms, and has an amazing sense of humour.

I want to be more like her. I write this blog and am writing my book to try to help other people with Crohn's Disease, their friends and family members, and to spread awareness of the disease. But I could, and should be doing so much more. Some Cancers, especially if not caught in time or the ones that are treatment resistant, can be terminal. My disease isn't, there is not any real chance that I could die. So like her I should live everyday to it's fullest! I need to be doing more to make the world a better place to live like she does, find more things to be passionate about like she is, and do more with my life, and take better care of myself.

She has experienced the love of a good pet, a great man, and the love of The Lord. So many people love her, she is an amazing person that has touched so many peoples lives. She is strong and brave and has taken her Cancer by the horns.

I pray everyday that she wins her battle because this world is a better place with her in it. But if God calls her home, she will have left a huge fingerprint. On the world, on her friends and on my heart.