Difficult day

First and foremost, THANK YOU to those who have emailed, called, and stopped by to check on me. It really means alot.

This post is of a rather "personal" nature but I'm going to post it anyways. Please, if your one to be offended by such posts, you may want to skip this entry. It's just much easier for me to "say" it once than to repeat it to several people who want to know what's wrong.

On Monday, at approximately 2:30 AM, I was woken up with the worst abdominal pains ever. Knowing that I have a high pain tolerance, the strength of this pain alarmed me. I felt as though I needed to have a bowel movement and rushed upstairs. Once there, I couldn't go. The next several minutes were quite scary. I went from shaking uncontrollably to feeling my hands, feet and eventually my face start tingling and go numb. I couldn't stand as I became very weak so I stretched far enough to open the window. The bitter cold air from outside was the only thing I could think of to keep me from passing out. It was that bad. I became dizzy, very lightheaded, continued to shake, started to sweat and felt naseaus. I made a conscious effort to slow my breathing down for fear of passing out cold. Sometime within the next hour, I did have a bowel movement. Feeling somewhat better, I got up to head back to bed. Then I felt like I had to go again. This time, there was no scary symptoms as listed already. I finished, thinking I had a case of dirarrhea, only to stand and see the toilet filled with blood. Trying not to panic, I convinced myself that perhaps it was a fluke and that I was just fine. I went back to bed.

For the next five hours, I was in a great deal of pain with the constant need to rush to the toilet. There was no stool anymore. I was only passing blood. Large amounts of blood. I finally called the doctor who urged me to head to the hospital. Being stubborn, I thought I could hold out a bit longer. I showered, had several more "episodes", and finally woke Tim up to take me in.

Once there, they ran several tests (bloodwork, urine, x-ray, ct scans, rectal exam and even a stool sample). To give you an idea, the little urine cups you give samples in, was filled with blood for the "stool" sample. Only problem, there was no "stool". After convincing them that I hadn't gone on some exotic vacation and gotten a parasite, and having all tests come back fine, I was sent home on Vicodin. (The morphine and ativan worked wonders in the hospital though).

On Tuesday, I followed up with my family doctor who then referred me to a GI doctor for a colonoscopy ASAP.

Today I had the colonoscopy done with several biopsies taken. I had a considerable amount of pain even with the "conscious sedation" they gave me. I begged several times to "stop" as my insides felt as they were being ripped out. After the procedure, the doctor came in to discuss the preliminary findings with us. I will return next week to discuss the pathology report with him on the biopsies he took. However, the initial findings indicate ulcerative colitis. From the photographs he gave us, it is affecting the left side of the colon from the splenic flexure down the descending colon. It is possible that Crohn's Disease could be an issue as well.

I had a colonoscopy done ten years ago and the results came back "normal" with possible "IBS" (irritable bowel syndrome). Comparing those photos with these new ones are like night and day. The new ones show definate ulcerations, pus pockets (which I assume are infection), and are just plain icky looking. (Not like the inside of your colon is pretty anyways!)

I have been started on three medications. Asacol 400MG (2tabs 3x day), Cipro (2tab 2x day), and Flagyl (1tab 2x day). I looked up Asacol and it is used for ulcerative colitis. The Cipro is for the infection and the Flagyl I believe is used to prevent a yeast infection (which is a common side effect of Cipro for some women). Thankfully I've never suffered from one so I wouldn't know.

So, with all of that said, my mind is whirling at 100mph. I have looked up a great deal of information on ulcerative colitis. I will post those findings later but for now, I need to go take care of a little one who is definately keeping me on my toes tonight.

Please continue to keep me in your thoughts. Thanks