Crohn’s Journey Chapter 1

Crohn’s disease, what is it?

It’s one of many medical ailments that appear in many people’s medical journeys. It is a disease that presents uniquely to each. On what triggers the disease, what age it appears and what combination of symptoms are experienced. 

“Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are diseases that inflame the lining of the GI (gastrointestinal) tract and disrupt your body’s ability to digest food, absorb nutrition, and eliminate waste in a healthy manner. These are lifelong disease and people can experience acute periods of active symptoms (active disease or flare), and other times when their symptoms are absent (remission).” [1]

Here is my Journey. Crohn’s has been a part of my life for 14 years now. I have to say I’m grateful and lucky that I didn’t have a flare up until I was in my early twenties. Where so many suffer from much younger ages, for their entire lives. 

Interestingly my father who manages diabetes, another autoimmune disease, was diagnosed at 26 with type 1 which is typically more child on set. We all walk different paths… But the similarities in genetics is fascinating. It’s unique and not easily summed up into a few thousand words. So with that, I’m going to take the time to break up the experience into chapters on this ongoing lifelong journey.
Thank you for walking with me…  

…

Fall 2006 I added another layer to my life. I went from part-time worker and stay at home mom to adding full-time student into the mix. This was my first post-secondary experience. An experience that I never thought was for me. 

I was driven to create a more positive educational experience, then that of my public school education. Pushing to be a part of the student council, as well as picking up some part-time work on campus. With of course the 24-hour a week in class portions of the program. Keeping in mind being a single mother of a 2-year-old. This left me often studying through the night. In some cases, especially around exam time, had me consuming far too many coffees, energy drinks, gummy candies and other not so healthy consumable choices. 

So during my first exam week experience, major gut rot as I called it back then was ailing me. Something that I contributed to my poor eating and sleeping choices. As well as, the compiled stress that is associated with school, work and life.  After exams were over my abdominal pain subsided then disappeared. Fast forward a few months to second semester’s exam block and low and behold the gut rot was back… Yet with changing some of the poor habits, I started to affiliate the pain with stress. As again once the exam weeks were complete, pain subsided to nothing or little to both.

With all of that, did I seek any medical advice?

Not at that time. I was far too busy prioritising everything else in life, pushing my health to the back seat.  As I contributed the pain to poor choices and stress. So I continued on with life. Got a job groundskeeping at the college for the summer and set into an amazing summer experience. I spent my days maintaining and tending gardens, riding lawn tractors and whatever other odd jobs that needed to be completed on campus. From time to time over the course of the summer I would experience some abdominal pain. To a transition where I would be physically sick on the weekends but managed to feel okay through the work week. 

After almost a month of being physically sick on weekends only, I sought out medical attention. I went to my GP and discussed this phenomenon. At first I was met with disbelief. I was told that people don’t just get sick on the weekends… 

I beg to differ, as that was what my reality was.

As I was raised to work. To go out and make a living to be able to support my family. That nothing would stop me from doing that. It seemed in this situation that was the case. I don’t recall any specialized testing, just some blood work. That came back normal. So I was just advised to monitor myself. Even though this weekend sickness continued. I believe there is such truth to the term “mind over matter” that your perspective and mindset truly affects your physical health on many levels.

So, I did just that. Continue to endure the weekend sickness, abdominal pain and keep an eye on temperature level. A few weeks before my contracts were complete things started to escalate. I was at work on the lawn tractor, pulled over, turned off the machine and took a few minutes. As my abdominal pain needed some concentration to deal with. With this I really started going through all the scenarios in my mind. This issue was starting to actually physically affect my work.

 Was it safe to continue?

 What was the problem? 

I had stuck it out until the point where I just couldn’t continue. I was in so much physical pain, I was only able to manage squatting and clenching my abdomen. My colleagues were fantastic. Trying to accommodate me to find a comfortable position to sit in, offering water and making sure I could contact my family.

At that point it was time to head to the emergency department. 

Many of you know the drill when it comes to that. Line up and wait. We went through triage then waited for some time. When we were called, we were taken to the far end of the ER. To an area that contained multiple diagnostic bays. Or at least that is what I’m choosing to call them. 

Bays that house samples… 

Yes I just referenced the people within these curtained cubicles as samples. This isn’t to dehumanize each person and their story who happens to spend some time on their journey in a diagnostic bay in the back of the ER. It’s about the description of the data that is compiled for each person’s medical journey. 

Samples in the research project of life during that era in society of that location involving that individual’s experience, inheritance and exposure to environmental anomaly. 

You can really see the samples when multiple different people that walk similar paths end up with similar ailments. When the patterns arise that’s when we often start documenting the data that is in front of us. (Example – Take carpal tunnel and a desk job, the reason for multiple studies to be done for ergonomics.)

Searching for a way to repair devastation…

So much so, that I think we forget to look for the origin of some issues as a way to reduce the number of people who have to experience and transition into a medical journey. It’s called failure analysis on the engineering and technology side of things. Basically, trying to find out what induced the issue, before trying to fix it.

Now this only relates to ailments that are environmentally induced. But when I say environment, I don’t just mean the surrounding area. I’m talking about the interaction with other people. The imprint that is made through one’s journey. As not only the tangible toxic environment through products and location. But the stress factor on how one’s body internalizes, analyzes and manages situations.  

Anyways, bringing it back around to the back of the ER. I was curled in a ball on a gurney burning up with a raging fever. No blankets allowed, I was running too hot. The only thing that took the edge off was my mom’s hand on my back. The warmth from her was a god send. That along with me singing all the lullabies I would send my baby girl off to sleep with, helped me through the waiting game…

To be continued…

Source 

[1] “About Crohn’s & Colitis,” What are Crohn’s and Colitis? – What are Crohn’s and Colitis – Crohn’s and Colitis Canada. [Online]. Available: https://crohnsandcolitis.ca/About-Crohn-s-Colitis/What-are-Crohns-and-Colitis. [Accessed: 30-Aug-2021].