Sick...Sick...Sick

As most of you probably have heard, I recently had to be admitted to the hospital for 8 days due to a severe flare-up of my ulcerative colitis.  I was diagnosed with this disease in July 2008.  Basically, ulcerative colitis is when your immune system for some reason (the medical profession still has not yet determined why) begins to attack your large intestine (aka colon) because something in your body has changed (again, they don't know what/why) that causes the attacks.  Symptoms can vary greatly, and so can the length of the colon that is affected.  I'll spare you the gory details, but www.ccfa.org is a fantastic website that has a lot of great information about the disease. 

A couple of frustrating things about the disease:  doctors do not know what causes the disease, they don't know what triggers a flare-up, and there is no real cure for the disease (besides having surgery to remove your entire colon).  At this point in time they only know how to try to treat and manage the disease, or like I mentioned above, surgically remove the entire colon to remove the diseased organ.  It is not a life threatening disease, but has a major impact on quality of life especially during a flare-up.

When I was diagnosed, I learned that my mom also has this disease, so it was kind of a bonding/surprising moment to know that we shared something like this.  When I was diagnosed, I had a very mild form of the disease that was pretty manageable and did not really interfere with my every day life.  From the time I was diagnosed until June 2010 I had only 3 flares that were mild and manageable. 

This all changed literally the day after our wedding.  I had a moderate to severe flare-up come on and was in full force during our honeymoon.  Let's just say I couldn't stay away from the bathroom for more than 2 hours at a time and was generally uncomfortable our whole trip to Mexico.  Bless Kyle's heart for sticking with me through the whole trip, he really was so supportive.  When we got back from Mexico I immediately worked with my GI doctor to try and treat this new flare-up.  Over the course of the next two months through trial and error with different medications (at one point I was taking 13-15 pills a day plus other forms of medication) I thought I was starting to get my flare-up under control.  My symptoms had pretty much subsided and I was able to feel like a "normal" person again.  The normal feeling unfortunately only lasted about 3 weeks and my flare-up went from bad to worse.  My doctor ordered me to have a colonoscopy on 9/24 to get a better look at what was going on.  The news was not good.  My inflammation had spread from just being on the left side of my colon to my entire colon and was labeled as severe.  My doctor immediately put me on the highest dose of prednisone he could to quell the inflammation in my bowels, but warned me that if in a week I did not see improvement, he was probably going to have to put me in the hospital. 

The prednisone did not work and on 10/4, my doctor made the decision to put me into the hospital.  He ordered me on complete GI rest which meant no eating/drinking anything, and they had to put a feeding tube in my arm to make sure I got all the nutrients I needed.  At this point from 9/15 to the day they put me in the hospital I had lost 18 pounds, pretty scary.  On the first night they also brought in a colorectal surgeon to discuss possibly removing my colon.  At this point I was sick enough that the surgeon suggested I was a good candidate and that if I wanted, he would go ahead and schedule surgery.  Talk about scary!  Personally, I am very attached to my internal organs and I just had a hard time accepting that I didn't have any other options.  I really wanted to give the GI rest a try and see if there was any way that my body could heal itself (with the help of the GI rest and high doses of IV prednisone).  After being on GI rest for about 5 days, lots of prayers, and lots of love from those around me my body finally started responding positively to my treatments.  I continued to improve enough to be able to eat soft foods and be taken off of my feeding tube after 2 more days.  Finally after being in the hospital for 8 days, I was able to go home! 

I continue to improve each day, though I am still not "better" in the sense that I can function like a "normal" person.  It has taken me the last two weeks to build back up my strength in my muscles and to be able to do normal activities like go to the grocery store, go to work, shopping etc.  I know it will take more a few more months before I will be able to feel like a real person again that can eat what she wants, do what she wants and not let my bowels control me.  That being said, I feel better today than I have in such a long time, and I am looking forward to continued improvement.

As a sum to all this, I just want to say a BIG, BIG thank you to all of the friends and family who have prayed for me, sent me flowers while I was in the hospital, sent me cards, visited me and just generally showed their love and support for me during this difficult time.  I am so blown away at the love and support I have had during this whole time and I know that these things have been so helpful in my recovery.  I love you all so much and I know I wouldn't be feeling as good as I do without you.

The other person that deserves a mention (ok, so not even just a mention, but probably Husband of the Year award) is Kyle.  Who would have thought that we would have been so challenged during the first months of our marriage as we have been.  Kyle has been my rock through this whole ordeal, keeping my spirits up, laughing with me, crying with me and being the most supportive and loving husband anyone could ask for.  I don't know what I would do without him.  I thank God that he gave me Kyle.

Okay, so enough of the mushy stuff :).

I'll complete another post shortly to update on the happy happenings in the McGuire house!