an actual update from the hospital

I've just had my evening meds, so hopefully this will stay coherent.

The Crohn's had been improving slowly since my last hospitalization in June. Of course, pretty much anything is better than needing 2 units of blood transfused every two days because an ulcer had to make a fuss.

At the beginning of this month I started feeling a little crappier, like a minor flare of the Crohn's within the overall flare. No big deal, it happens. I'd had a nice stretch of good days so a few bad days in a row were bound to happen.

On the 10th of this month food stopped becoming my friend completely. I tried giving my GI system a break by well, not eating solid food. Tomato soup, lemonade, and Boost High Protein shakes are pretty much what I lived off of. Plus the usual handful of pills.

Long story short, I went to the doctor, he gave me some antibiotics since it seemed I had a C. difficile infection, based on my symptoms. A week later (Wednesday night) I was getting worse and went to the ER. Early Thursday morning I was admitted and here I've been ever since.

A CT scan showed no abscesses in my abdomen, lab work was negative for a C. difficile infection, and an ultrasound showed my gallbladder is just fine. As of right now, the only explanation for what's going on is a flare up of the Crohn's. That doesn't mean there isn't something else going on, but on the flip side, the longer one has Crohn's, the worse the flares become.

There's still the possibility of an intestinal infection that's not C. difficile, which is why I'm being treated with 2 antibiotics right now. Or I could have a viral infection, in which case I have to wait it out.

My treatment also includes, among other medications, increasing one of my meds that reduces inflammation in the intestines, IV steroids, and Valium (which eases intestinal spasms, relaxes painful skeletal muscle spasms associated with the MS, minimizes the tremor that has developed in my hands as a side effect of another medication, reduces anxiety, and helps with insomnia).

Today I had my first solid food in two full weeks, since the 10th. The doc won't send me home until I can tolerate solid food again, and without the need of heavy-duty IV pain medication. As of right now, I've had two half meals and two snacks consisting of real food (Jello doesn't count as a real food, it's considered a liquid). This hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped. I'm eating small amounts of food with more frequency than I usually do, so I don't overload my system. I'm doing all the right things, but the transition isn't as smooth as I'd hoped.

So that's what has me in the hospital this time; nothing as dramatic as a bleeding ulcer, but a slow downhill slide that requires inpatient care.

When will I be going home? My guess is Tuesday, since I haven't been having a smooth transition to solid food. If I'd been having an easier time, the doc said he might have felt comfortable with sending me home Monday. It all depends on how well I respond to treatment and when we figure out what's causing the abdominal pain that's completely unlike the pain I generally experience with a Crohn's flare.

Did that make sense? It does to me, in a rambling sort of way. A couple of the meds for MS and migraines leave me in a permanent brain fog, so what makes sense to me doesn't always make sense to everyone else.

The joys of the Autoimmune Trifecta.

sunday catblogging - hospital edition

What's actually going on: Freya in full cat loaf mode after I came inside from taking photos of the International Space Station flying overhead.

Surprise caption contest! Simply leave a comment to this post with your version of what's going on, what Freya's thinking, make a LOLFreya out of the photo, or whatever else your twisted brains can come up with. In a few days I'll post my favorites, granting eternal glory on the interwebs.

What makes this a hospital edition (aside from the obvious fact that I am in fact in a hospital as a patient and my meds are really screwing with my language skills) is that the caption contest is a thinly veiled attempt to get you guys help cheer me up and hopefully have some fun in the process.

This morning's hospital update and Tropical Depression Fay's impact in Huntsville to follow.

~~~

ETA - If you haven't already, head over to Modulator and check out the Friday Ark if you need something more than kitties to get your critter fix.

Son of ETA - Sunday means Carnival of the Cats, which will be hosted by Kashim and Othello.

i had to go and run my mouth, er, fingers

There's a few remarks I made in my previous post that with 20/20 hindsight, might have been inspired a great deal because of feeling ill and being somewhat pissed off at the world in general because I felt like crap. It happens.

That's not exactly what this post is about.

...because I can't get an increase in my pain medications without an office visit, or an actual hospitalization, because some people like to get high.

Now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of the side effects of using my meds properly. Yes, they make you feel good. Anyone who says differently is a liar. Admittedly, a bullet would feel better after gut-wrenching pain for four fucking hours.

Maybe I do need a nice Thorazine vacation. I don't need 10 years EMS experience to tell me that delusions are not a good sign.

Well, I'm not getting a Thorazine vacation. I'm getting IV antibiotics, anti-emetics, more solumedrol, and pain medication because I may or may not have a Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, infection on top of a flare of the Crohn's Disease.

Based on what I've been told so far, I will be here until at least Sunday. The original C. diff diagnosis was made based on my symptoms. This time the hospital lab will be analyzing a fecal sample each day for 3 days looking for things like what specific strain of C. diff I may have, if I have any parasites, or any other abnormalities. This is in addition to the second CT scan I've had in the past week, and the metric crapload of blood that's been drawn.

This is the long way of saying so far we don't know crap. (go ahead and groan)

I'm sure if I dig agound on this machine I'll find some cat pictures and make Friday Catblogging for once.

with great power, comes great arrogance

First, let me say that, on a personal level, I like my pain management doctor and his nurse practitioner (M, a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner, because I'm lazy). They're great people, and M spent more time than she had to just listening to me when I was in the hospital in June, manic as all hell because of some of the meds I was on.

This is a professional gripe/bitch/moan.

I think the pain management field is broken. There are people out to legally get high and abuse the system. Then there are the rest of us, who live every day of our shortened lives in pain most of you have never experienced, and are denied adequate pain control because of those who abuse the system.

So the fix is to crack down so hard that those of us in delirium-inducing pain have to endure it so that the people who want a buzz can't have one?

"...I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone..."
- Hippocratic Oath, Classical version

Withholding treatment causes harm to patients. I think the pain management establishment has forgotten this.

I'm ready to sever my relationship with the pain center and see if my neurologist will take over my pain management. At least he will return my phone calls and won't make me wait weeks for an office visit

~~~

Usually, I try to make light of my medical crap. This is not one of those days.

First, some background information. My current round of neurological meds tend to make me dream very vividly about whatever TV show/movie/book I've just watched or read before going to sleep. I watched "The Prophecy" for the first time in several years right before bed and that night became Thomas Daggett. I've gone back and re-watched the film since then and what I dreamed wasn't in the film. I wasn't just experiencing a scene first-person, I was getting the director's cut in my head.

Yesterday I was in so much pain that I was actually delirious off and on. I found myself living "Stargate Atlantis" (probably because a new episode had been on Friday night, so it was the freshest thing in my memory). I was being tortured for information (by the Genii, if you're familiar with the series) on how to sink the city. I didn't know how to sink the city, I was a member of the science contingent, studying plankton of all things. My torturers thought I was trying to hide information, so they kept going.

I have bruises at the base of my left thumb from where I was biting it, trying not to scream.

(Gods only know what my delusion would have been if I'd been watching Top Gear on BBCAmerica. "The....the Bugatti Veyron has 10 radiators and generates 1,001 brake-horsepower but I don't know how much torque the engine generates at 7,000 RPMs...")

All because I can't get an increase in my pain medications without an office visit, or an actual hospitalization, because some people like to get high.

Now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of the side effects of using my meds properly. Yes, they make you feel good. Anyone who says differently is a liar. Admittedly, a bullet would feel better after gut-wrenching pain for four fucking hours.

Maybe I do need a nice Thorazine vacation. I don't need 10 years EMS experience to tell me that delusions are not a good sign.