Thought I'd update the thread:
Little Old Man wrote:Worst year of my life by far, as it's been dominated by me discovering I had, and subsequently being destroyed by Crohn's disease.
Started loosing lots of weight, becoming weak, tired, and anemic, and so on, spending 4 weeks around easter in bed. Had to call it quits on my second year of uni a month before I should have finished to come home for the tests to confirm Crohn's, as I needed my family around me.
Things got slightly better for while, as I was medicated up, but I was still weak and tired all summer. Never went anywhere or saw anyone. Then things went tits up after ending my steroids. Got admitted to hospital in October, which after two weeks had got me stronger, but hadn't tackled the roots of my Crohn's. Went home, and deteriorated fairly quickly. Got readmitted two weeks later with a high pulse, no appetite, and at my lowest ever weight. I knew I was bloody ill, but I found out last week the docs thought I could have died.
Tomorrow will mark week 6 of being in hospital for me. 6 weeks of fear, medication, bad news, and complications. Last week they finally sorted two outstanding issues, one of which was an abscess in my stomach, which had been giving me a high pulse, weak blood pressure, and high temps for weeks. Worst thing is there is no end in sight, with more operations on the way. Least I'll get some time at home on Christmas.....
So yeah, read up on the symptoms of Crohn's, and if you have/get them, go the docs ASAP, as it has completely shafted everything in my life. Next year I'm going to spend battling this, before I can even start to rebuild my life
Since then things have got substantially better for me. The abscess removal was the turn around point, I started feeling much better, looking outwardly better, and began piling on weight again, since my body was no longer fighting a loosing battle against a load of puss!
I came in to hospital weighing just 7st 10, and now I'm back to 10st 2
Feeling like myself again, and looking like me too. My goal weight is eleven and a half stone, but I will be in the healthy bmi range when I get to ten and a half. Most of this gain was due to TPN (total parenteral nutrition), for which they install a pick line into one of the bigger veins in your arm (it can safely stay in for months due to this). Then every night they drip in this huge 2 litre, 2000 calourie bag of liquid feed, over 16 hours, which has all the nutrients you specifically need, based off daily blood tests. As it goes straight into your blood stream, it bypasses my crohn's infested bowel, meaning I got all the goodness, so to speak. It also meant my appetite could build up in its own time, as I wouldn't have to force down food to keep my weight up (just eat what I felt like).
I came off the feed a few days back (appetite has now reached stupid levels of hunger, it was already big enough
), leaving me now close to going home. Looks like they're going to put me on a drug I had previously, plus a new injection based drug to help combat the crohn's, and observe how I go with them before letting me go. Best of all, since the abscess went, they have massively backed off about giving me an operation(s). Don't get me wrong, I understand I will probably need some surgery in the future, but I'm extremely glad I've gotten to the point where it is not urgent, giving them chance to try new meds, and also make sure any surgery I get is the right choice.