So 2 1/2 months after being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, I had to move back home to PA. My bowels were not healing well and the Arthritic pain was too much for me to handle. The plan was for me to see our family doctor, take advantage of health benefits from my dad's insurance, and hopefully get better. Honestly, I thought I'd be back out to Utah in a month or two and certainly did not think of this as a permanent move.
But let me back up a little. After the initial diagnosis, I learned that there was no set "list" of foods to eat or avoid. The doctor told me it was more of a trial and error process, and I would learn what I should avoid. In the beginning, I noticed salad would go right through me and end up floating in the toilet. So in my mind, I had to check off lettuce. Carrots were definitely a no-go (major poop afterward), and corn was a doozy. It seemed like most vegetables just went right through me and I never felt good afterward. Instead, I ate a lot of rice and oatmeal. I think these were on the "safe to eat" suggestion list, but knowing what I know now... that's weird. I remember I would make bowls of rice and mix in ketchup. And I ate it a lot. I also craved hamburgers like no other. I would wake up in the morning and all I could think about was HAMBURGER!!!
So anyway, I was back in Pennsylvania. I had lost a significant amount of weight and it was exciting to have to buy new clothes of a smaller size. If people made the comment, "Oh wow, you look so thin!" I'd respond with something like, "Hey thanks, I've been sick." :) I was not happy to be in Pennsylvania, nor did I want to plant myself there. I was not eager to become involved in the church YSA social scene and kind of kept to myself. In the beginning, I was still pretty sick and I would get Arthritic pain all throughout my body. It was most commonly in my fingers and wrists, but also in my knees. I remember just a few weeks after being home-- Thanksgiving Day-- I was hobbling up and down the stairs and limping around the house because it hurt so bad. Not fun!
So leave it up to my Idaho farmer dad to give me some gel that is used to soothe arthritic pain in HORSES. Haha! Thanks Dad. But I really did use the stuff. It looked like like Aloe Vera gel, only it smelled like mint, and then my skin would feel really cold and tingly. I guess it did kind of distract me from the pain and I applied it every night before going to bed.
In the mean time, I had met with our family doctor and I he started me on a new pill. I was always taking Prednisone (a strong steroid with not-so-good side effects if taken for long periods of time), paired with some other pill. I got off the pointless 16-a-day pill and started on something called Immuran. Prednisone was a doozy. One of the side effects is called "moon face"... where your face basically becomes bloated and weird. So after a while, my face was really puffy and it made my eyes extra squinty. When a friend of mine came to visit, she said she hardly recognized me. That's sad. You have to wean slowly off of Prednisone and the process takes forever long. And sometimes when I was half-way weaned off and I had a big "flare-up" (the diarrhea kicks in drastically)... I'd have to immediately increase the Prednisone again and start back at square 1. It was exhausting.
During that time, I was working a temp job at the hospital (sorting X-rays in the creepy basement) and I just remember driving there early in the morning, listening to Avril Lavine's "Complicated" album over and over again. Now any time I hear any of those Avril songs, I think of the days of being sick in PA. :) However, I was slowly starting to feel better. I remember on any "good day" (when I didn't feel arthritic pain), I felt like I had to really celebrate and take advantage of my health. So I went rollerblading a lot in my neighborhood (it was low impact and the easy gliding didn't cause any pain)... and I also took our dog for walks.
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| Super old pic, but you get the idea. |
My condition didn't really effect me in the job environment... other than frequent trips to the bathroom throughout the day. I do remember having a hard time with running or exercising. I really wanted to be a runner and worked out in the gym at the YMCA... but as soon as I'd finish my workout, I'd sit on the toilet with killer abdominal pains for a long time. I remember just sitting there hunched over in the stall, sweat dripping everywhere, but unable to move from the toilet until feeling totally relieved. I learned that maybe running wasn't the best thing for me-- at least not at the time.
At some point the doctor put me on a new pill called Sulfasalazine. I was on this pill for quite a while, but the whole time I was also on Prednisone-- still. Then that summer (I forget the timing of it all, or how long I was on the Sulfa drug)... my mom and I went on a beach trip with friends in our ward. I had just recently weaned all the way off of Prednisone, and that weekend I completely broke out into hives. Not only was it ITCHY and miserable, but it looked hideous! I remember looking down at my legs and gasping because I honestly looked like some X-Men creature or something. Purply-pink scaly hives all over my legs, stomach, arms, etc. Awesome way to sport the swimsuit, eh? UGH. So this mystery was a weird one... and they finally figured out that I HAD BEEN ALLERGIC TO SULFA THE ENTIRE TIME... but the symptoms never surfaced because the Prednisone was keeping it all in check for those many months of taking it. It wasn't until the Prednisone was out of my system that the SULFA drug really attacked me. Sheesh!!! My poor body. So that was the end of SULFA and on all my medical charts it says I'm allergic to SULFA. No more hives, please.
My next drug choice was Asacol, which seemed to be good and I did those 3-month order things and had tons of them on hand.
Somewhere in all of this mess I decided to serve a mission! :) Some people had assumed I hadn't gone on a mission earlier because of all my health problems, and honestly... that had nothing to do with it. I just never really felt like I wanted to go. But in that time of living at home in PA (by the way, I eventually embraced the YSA crowd and totally LOVED IT)...I spent a lot of time with the sister missionaries-- huge inspirations-- and really quite suddenly decided I wanted to serve a mission. I figured I wouldn't go foreign because my bowels would have exploded with those kinds of issues... and I was delighted to find out I was called to the Washington Spokane mission. YAY!!! I was 27 when I left on my mission. It was perfect.
I was completely BLESSED as a missionary and felt better in those 18 months than I had ever felt before! I knew it was a special miracle from Heavenly Father as I served him with all my heart, mind, and strength. Of course I still had my bathroom moments, and it was a joke with all my companions that I was in the bathroom way too often... but it wasn't anything ridiculous or unbearable.
Towards the end of my mission, in my last transfer, I started having weird poops. I was so nervous and scared that I would get really sick again. It was like this secret curse sneaking up on me because my mission time was almost up. I had to go in an get an ultrasound (again, I was nervous!) but I was surrounded by good and loving members who loved me and offered great comfort and support. There wasn't anything terribly wrong and the ultrasound came back clear. I finished out the mission and felt good about everything.
In all these years-- it had been about 6-7 years since my initial diagnosis-- I was eating pretty regular. I still avoided carrots and corn if I could (although I love both)... and salad often went straight to the toilet. But for the most part I was "normal" and ate pretty much whatever I wanted.
I will save the rest for a 3rd and final blog post about my story... the "post-mission" years... and bring you up to date with my current status-- the whole reason why I brought this all up in the first place! *Cheers*
Poop, poop, poop, poop., Bree is talking poop today!
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