One of my paths to health: learning, healing, and changing ray by ray.
Some of my friends have expressed interest in how I deal with Crohn’s Disease. I tell what I remember but I thought I’d collect memories here to be able to share a more complete picture.
[currently mostly just an outline, I’ll come back and fill in]
My Story
Gut Agony Begins and Fades…Repeats
Unripe mulberries, dehydration and/or overheating while exercising on hot “black flag” days, and eventually a raw steak each lead to pain in my abdomen that felt like I was being pulled apart inside. After the steak, (in Europe, during the Mad Cow Disease outbreak1), the pulling was so agonizing I was screaming in the fetal position in on a clinic bed. No help for relief was offered. The results from a bloody feces sample indicated an an unknown bacteria.
Gut Agony Escalates and Overwhelms
Over years, smelling and tasting like strep throat but not being sick with throat issues, horribly embarrassed, then very loose bowels for weeks. A doctor recommended by my friend (nurse) concluded that it was because of the way I ate as an American female. Prescribed Peptol Bismol. Eventually I became so weak I layed down in a hectic environment and slept soundly in the middle of the day. When I awoke I felt so terrible and weak I decided to go to a walk-in clinic. The doctor felt my abdomen with her hands and detected a mass in the area of my illium. She told me to go to ER for a CT scan. The nurses told me behind her back that the doctor was “over the top” and she was overreacting. I did not want to go to ER. I decided to go anyway. I received a CT scan and was referred to a GI.
Diagnosis Relieves
Treatment Takes Edge Off
Short-term Overwhelm Continues
Minor Help with Cost
Short-term Overwhelm Increases Frequency
Proposed Help with Higher Risks
There Must be Another Way
A Friend Confidently Offers Help
Help She Does
Hurt She Does
On My Own
Different Help
Different Angles
Improved Health
Still Weak
Getting Stronger and Wiser
Adding Sunshine 
Leave a comment