10.11.2006

is 26 mid or late twenties? please say mid.

thatt's right folks, on monday i turned 26. it has been 7 years since i came out to the east coast.

enough reminsicing. i have some complaining to do.

no, not really. i mean i could, but nothing grinds my gears right now.

instead i will share with the world, the uncurable disease i fight daily:

crohn's disease.

specifically crohn's (granulomatous) colitis as it only affects my colon.

this grand ol' website tells you all you need to know.

but a quick run down is this: uncurable, terrible, meds for the rest of my life, and fear of going #2.

if i miss a dosage of pills (3x daily), i have to worry if i'll exhibit symptoms, if i skip a whole day of pills, i know i am going to be in big trouble in the next couple days.

it all started this past spring when i noticed blood in my bm. that freaked me out. so i went to the doctor to see what it was. he thought hemorroids, but there was no evidence of, so i was shipped off to a gastrointerologist to see what was there. he couldn't figure it out in the office, so i was signed up for a colonoscopy.

so while i was waiting for the scope to happen, i'm looking up my symptoms on webmd and google and such, and i find i have crohn's, colietis, or RECTAL CANCER.

christ almighty, i am freaked the fuck out.

in may, i had the colonoscopy. my first. here's my most vibrant memory of the procedure. they give my the sedatives, not strong enough to knock me out, just enough to make me not feel my body, or quite be aware of the 3 foot tube up my ass. now, the doc is watching his work on a tv, and i am angled in such a way that it is all i can stare at. i hear the doc say that he is taking a biopsy from the colon wall (a biopsy is a small piece a tissue so they can test it for various things).

"that is my colon," is what i'm thinking. "he just ripped a piece of my colon off." my next thought. "i didn't feel a thing!"

the colonoscopy found signs of inflammation and evidence of coliteis, so we threw me on the meds i'm still on. asacol, 2 pills 3x daily.

next was my upper gi and intestinal series.
but we'll save that for the next installment of
reger: his health and why you should care

1 comment:

  1. My sister has Crohn's. It has REALLY REALLY helped her to get onto a macrobiotic diet. She's now pretty much asymptomatic. If you want more info about it, just shoot me an IM or e-mail or something.

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