Yes, for those of you who are wondering, that is the "official" Crohn's and Colitis wristband. Testicular cancer gets "livestrong", breast cancer is a pretty pink and Crohn's disease, if not embarrassing enough...gets a band that says "Got Guts". Hey, at least people with Crohn's have a sense of humor.
Sometimes all this running makes me forget the other reason we are doing this race besides to get flat stomachs and toned legs so I thought I would give a little update on my health to refocus some of my energy towards the cause and not just towards carb-loading.
Starting in mid-January I started to have bad stomach aches and other flare ups (for most Crohn's patients a flare up generally includes fevers, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, pus and other unsightly issues having to deal with that area). Luckily, I have gastroduodenal Crohn's disease so those types of lovely occurrences are few and far between. My type generally makes flare ups include nausea, upset stomach, weight loss (now you all know my secret to staying so thin), loss of appetite and of course, vomiting (you can visit CCFA.org to find out more information on the different types of Crohn's and see what other people go through on a daily basis).
I generally can self correct these kind of flare ups as I have been living with Crohn's since I was 16 and know what my body needs. I knew I had a lot of stress with finding a new job, graduation and my move so once that was eliminated and I got in my daily groove I assumed it would go away. *Usually mine is not stress induced as I try to give myself plenty of "me" time to de-stress. It is usually related to diet and exercise but since I was on a strict diet for half-marathon training and exercising all the time, I knew this couldn't be it.*
I continued on for a few weeks and tried to take my running easy but with two half marathons coming up in February, I couldn't take that much time to rest. My girlfriends birthday was February 1st so we headed up to Napa for some fun in the sun and the vineyards. I had started to feel really sick while driving home but pushed through it and thought maybe it was just something I ate. This is when we went to dinner and I made a HUGE mistake. I had Mexican food. Not only did I have Mexican food, but I ate a whole bucket of chips. Now, chips are extremely hard to digest...so when we got home and were getting ready to go out I was in A LOT of pain. I tried to push through it but as I was dropping everyone off downtown I knew I needed to go to the hospital.
I headed up to UCSF medical center and called the Crohn's guy from my doctors office who was on call. He came and luckily was able to examine me right away.
Note: This next portion is embarrassing and graphic but I feel I should be honest about what happens to Crohn's patients and when I told my mom what the doctors did even SHE didn't know what we go through when we are being checked out so I figured it would be useful to inform all of you. Just be advised it is not pleasant so you can skip this part if you want.
Another warning, I barely listen to what things the doctors are doing or why they are doing them because it generally hurts so bad that I don't care WHAT they do, so I will be telling you this from my perspective, not the scientific one.
1. The first thing the doctor does is come in to the room. Of course, you have like half a piece of paper covering you that they call a "gown". I was wearing a dress that night so my gown provided even less coverage than usual. Plus, my doctor must be pushing 100 years old and is a kind of creepy man. Yet I digress.
2. He feels your stomach. Now this isn't a nice oh look how much you've been working out, its so flat little pat on the belly. No. It is a....hmmm I think I lost something in there and I am going to push as hard as I can to see if I can detect where it is in the middle of all of your organs and other generally inflamed parts of your insides.
3. Now this is the part my mom didn't know. They do what I like to call the "getting to know you". This is where they ask you to lay on your side and they get their nasty creepy old man fingers all lubed up and stick them up your bum. Yes, your bum. What are they doing up there you might ask? I assume they want to make sure you feel maximum embarrassment and discomfort because living with a disease that gives you chronic diarrhea and vomiting doesn't provide you with enough.
4. While fingers are in this place that no fingers should ever be, they get comfy and wiggle them around for a while...again they must be looking for whatever they lost because clearly they didn't locate it with the stomach kneading exercise earlier.
5. Fingers removed and the doctor, without fail, looks at me and says "Feels fine to me!", except imagine that coming from a creepy old man at 1 AM inside a small room wearing a small towelette to cover you. GROSS! Plus, this little action makes you feel sick, bloated and kind of gross for at least two days afterward.
6. This part varies depending on what is wrong that day and what they found from the poking and prodding. That night, it was the test that you need to drink urine flavored pink drink so they can take pictures of my insides (years of tests and different preps for these tests have made it so I only remember the worst parts)....I think it was a CAT scan. Who knows!?
All of this for the conclusion I didn't really want to hear. I am getting worse. The doctors have been warning me that I won't be able to stay in my remission induced bliss for too much longer and the day has finally come that I am officially no longer in remission. I am now at the doctors every two weeks (that means "getting to know you"s bi-monthly woohoo!) and we are currently deciding what the best treatment plan is going forward, especially with my active lifestyle. As soon as I get the update I will let you know....I have another Dr. appt today after work so hopefully I will know more soon!
So....the incredibly long hospital visit ended with me feeling defeated and as always, violated. So against doctors orders I woke up the next morning at 7 am and ran the San Francisco half marathon. Now...all of you doctors and nurses out there...it wasn't really against doctors orders completely, he said I could take an easy run if I felt better and I did. I did take it easy and finished but not before throwing up in a bush on mile 2. BUT I FINISHED! Take that Crohn's disease!
Hurrah for doctors that if nothing else, give you funny stories to share with your friends!
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