Crohn’s Emergency Part 1
You might have noticed a small gap in my postings. This was not intentional. I was going to post an update to my finances but something came up. I had a bit of an emergency last week. On Monday I had to have emergency surgery. I will get into some detail down below but I am doing well and recovering so no need to worry.
The situation all started on Thanksgiving. I had felt mostly ok all day but my stomach was making some bubbling noises and I could feel gas moving around. Not a big deal, I have random days like this all the time. So I didn't end up eating anything and went home after spending some nice time with my Dad’s side of the family.
Friday was a different story. My bubbling noises turned into bloating and the start of minor spasms of pain in my core. I thought this was a bit weird since I had started drinking multiple electrolyte drinks and a good amount of water everyday. I also wasn't eating too much anymore as I was starting my down cycle of Steroids and was able to stay around 2000 calories. I ignored it and went over to my mothers to have Turkey with her, and help her around the house with some chores. I ended up moving some heavy objects to the basement for her to prepare for her to host Christmas for her side of the family.
For Dinner she made some special Crohn’s friendly food and it was delicious. I was hurting, but I didn't eat much the previous day so I was quite hungry. We had mashed potatoes, a nice juicy turkey breast, peas, and she made gluten free biscuits that were quite good. It took me a while to eat as the pain was pretty decent. After Dinner I went home and sat on the couch for a while just in misery from the gas. I ended up throwing up around 11 PM and I did feel better so I went to bed.
I woke up around 3AM and threw up again. I was having some pretty bad spasms but it was letting up and I didn't think the hospital was needed just yet. I was hoping it was just a bug and to not have to call in to my new job the next morning. But over the next few hours I ended up throwing up another 3 or 4 times. So by 6 am I had thrown up about 6 times maybe? You lose count after a while. I ended up calling my mom around 7 and asked her to take me to the hospital. I didn't want to do this as Sunday was her side of the family thanksgiving and I hadn't seen them all year. But once I said I wanted to go to the hospital she knew it was serious as I never want to go.
She arrived about 20 minutes later and we attempted to get me loaded up. It ended up taking almost an hour for me to stop throwing up long enough to get my way down to the car. The Vomit went from food, to stomach acid, to turning brown so that meant fecal matter was in my stomach. Aside from the amount of vomiting this was a pretty big sign that something major was wrong.
Once we arrived in the ER they took me back immediately. I threw up one more time and this time we measured it, 500ml. This was impressive considering I had nothing to drink in over 10 hours at this time. After some time they took me to get a CT scan to get a better idea of what was going on. An hour after the scan they informed us that I had a Small Bowel Obstruction, along with a Fistula (a previously known affliction), and a Luminal Stricture. All of this was enough to get me admitted immediately and have a surgical consult the next morning.
More to come next week. This is taking longer to write as sitting in a good position to write is not comfortable at the moment.
Thank you for reading and more will come next week.
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