I’ve been quiet for a while now and I wish I could say my
silence is because I was so busy with life and doing so well with treatments,
had adjusted to my ileostomy beautifully, that I simply didn’t have time to
write. Unfortunately, that isn’t what
happened. I nearly became just another
statistic in this fight against chronic illness. Too many of us have read the obituaries of
others with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis that are supposed to be
life-altering but not necessarily fatal.
Nearly all of those obits say the person died of “complications”
surrounding their disease, not the disease itself. Is there a difference, really? Yes, there is. Every fact sheet I can find says that
although there is a higher rate of colorectal cancer and some other cancers in
patients like us, none recognize the deaths from the increased risks associated
with surgeries, drugs, etc. Under
complications you will find things like eye irritation or mouth sores but not
complications that might lead to death or needing an organ transplant.
That’s where I found myself these last two years, fighting,
struggling and living day to day with those complications. What started out in April, 2014 planned as a
relatively simple surgery turned into a complicated surgery with 10 day
hospital stay after more than one “hiccup”.
Things snowballed and 2014 turned into the year of nine hospital stays,
two major surgeries, two minor surgeries, four other surgical procedures, four
different antibiotic resistant infections, three picc lines, seven CT scans,
stays in the ICU, acute care unit and telemetry unit. So many antibiotics and tests in so many
different departments! Then there was the
home health care nurse and physical therapist and insurance changes, not to
mention drug changes. It was all
completely overwhelming and unbelievable, even while I was there, living it.
I spent 2015 trying to get some semblance of my health and
life back together. I’d been left barely
able to sit up, not able to walk through the grocery store and in major
pain. Fear crept in. Getting back on my feet enough to simply
dress, eat, nap, make some dinner with my family or go out for a meal has taken
a lot of work. I have panic attacks over
everything and nothing.
When I started this blog, I wanted to help others, raise
awareness and hopefully let others know that you could do this. You could still live in spite of chronic
illness. Now I need to know that myself
again. It’s time for me to tell the
whole truth of all those complications, even if they are ugly and might not be
very inspiring, because in the end, I survived.
Knowledge is still power. Knowing
what can happen, why it happens and what we can do about it may help someone
else
Stay tuned . . .
living with an ostomy can be difficult
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