Najee’s Story
About a year and a bit ago I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. After getting awful stomach cramps I took my self to the emergency room and waited for the news. After that things seemed to settle down due to a high dose of steroids from my awesome doc. For a year or so I was doing well, I would only have a flare every few weeks and they were typically light on me. However, this June things changed.
It was a normal day, I hadn’t had a flare in a while and things were great. I came home from work on June the 17th feeling pretty good. I sat down and relaxed as usual and come time to sleep as soon as I lay in bed I felt this agonising pain in my lower right abdomen. It was like a flick of a switch. This was not anything like I’ve ever had. I tried to sleep it off and take my meds but nothing worked. I had this hunger rage that hit me at three am and I could not figure out what was wrong. That morning I struggled to get up. I got ready for work and ended up driving to the emergency room instead. They were as baffled as me until they saw the CT scan. I spent the day getting heavy doses of morphine just to stay responsive.
They were mentioning surgery a lot during the day and surgery was always something I wanted to avoid. Late that afternoon a surgeon and his team came to my room in a rush and basically said we operate now or there’s no tomorrow. My bowel had burst as well as my appendix. Things weren’t looking that great. I had also been told I’ve got peritonitis! Anyways they operated and fixed things up. I spent about a week in the hospital recovering but having emergency calls on a daily basis. I went home a week later only for things to take an even worse turn. The next morning I went into septic shock before I could even get out of bed. This was one of the most horrific things I’ve experienced. The amount of paramedics and all the equipment that was set up so fast was incredible.
That night they operated again and found that the peritonitis infection had covered all my organs and they basically went in and washed it out. From this point on I have not much recollection of the coming weeks as I spent a while in intensive care. After that I spent another two months in the hospital with multiple drains put in and pulled out just about on a weekly basis. The surgeon, chrons doc and infectious disease doctor had come to the conclusion that the there was a leak in my bowel because the infection would just keep returning. I was up and down from the x-ray theatres. I can’t recall every one I had that many. Apparently about 20 CTs. I had everything going the wrong way from fluid on the lungs to swelling. It wasn’t that fun. After a while things seemed to straighten out and I got sent home on masses of medication. Treating many things. However two days later it was all on again. I remember this insane amount of pain and the feeling of everything I eat not going anywhere. I ended up back in surgery with an obstruction from scar tissue growth. Again.
Another month in the hospital went by with many things going the wrong way. I was then released and things seemed not too bad at home for about 2 weeks until the pains returned. I was back in surgery to remove a 5 x 3 centimeter collection. Initially this surgery was supposed to be a simply laparoscopy but once they went in things were a bit different. They had decided to go back in further and re do the initial join of the bowel. They in total to my knowledge, removed about 25-30 centimeter of my bowel. So far it’s been about 4 weeks since I was released from the hospital and things are pretty good. Other than the extremely slow recovery from the last 4 months. It’s amazing how the smallest things like a flare then an ulcer can cause such distressing things. The hospital was home. It was the norm and still feels like it. I’m slowly coming off damaging amounts of pain killers that have had their own affect on my body.
Going from a busy working person who gyms every day to someone who weighed under 50kg. In time fingers crossed it’ll be nominal but it’s come to mind that there are so many people who have had bad experiences and since I’ve had Crohn’s I’ve followed CCA. Keeping my happy, strong and moving on. Thanks guys!