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The following blog posts are based solely on my personal experiences. I am not a Doctor, Nutrition specialist, Comedian, or Professional Baseball Player. If you have a health, nutrition, humor, or baseball issue please seek a PROFESSIONAL.

Favorite Bathrooms

  • Home Sweet Home
  • When I'm @ someones house: the one farthest away from the crowd
  • @ the Mall: Macy's (as public bathrooms go this one is very nice)
  • If I can't make it to Macy's...JC Penney's will have to do (they recently remodeled so it is better than it was. I don't know why they didn't ask for my input???)
  • Monterey Bay Fish Grotto in Monroeville has a great bathroom
  • Ponte Vedra Inn and Club, My fav place to vacation, their rooms have the most wonderful bathrooms

Helpful links

  • FREE Crohns Disease Support Network www.CrohnsDiseaseSN.com
  • Find a Toilet www.sitorsquat.com
  • Medical Alert Restroom Access Pass http://myibd.org/restroommedalert/index.php

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A Good Little Crohns Patient

I was a good little crohns patient and I went to my doctors appointment yesterday and here is my reward:

To be scheduled asap:

Liver Doctor: just to follow up to make sure my liver is staying healthy

Rheumatoid Doctor: joint pain

Blood work (I hate needles): Complete Blood Count w Differential, Platelet Count, Liver Function Test, Lipase/Amylase (to check the pancreas), ANA Antinuclear Antibody test, Anti DNA Double Strength, Anti Histone

Annual PPD Test

H1N1 vaccine

Dexa Scan: to check bone density

AND Everyone’s favorite……..A Colonoscopy Woo Hoo

Some of the blood work and the colonoscopy are to determine if the cimzia is helping and to figure out if the cimzia is causing all the joint pain (which has been very bad for about a month now). One option is to reload the cimzia to see if that will kick it into gear. Or switch to humira (more needles, whatever happened to the good old horse pill). He suspects however that this type of drug just doesn’t like me hahaha. I have made one decision this year. I am going to focus on a healthier diet and maybe add some natural remedies (nothing with needles). This will not be as easy as it sounds….I have very little willpower when it comes to staying away from bad foods that I love. Then after a quick poke and prod (nothing internal thankfully) he sent me on my way with the usual advice…..No high dose Tylenol and limit alcohol….darn.

Now this wasn’t the end of my fun. We decided to go have a late breakfast at a popular albeit dingy greasy spoon establishment downtown. (If Gordon Ramsay saw this place he would insist it be burned to the ground no matter how good business is.) I had scrambled eggs, hash browns, and toast. Yea I know so much for that healthier diet. Let me just say that the rest of my day was spent in or very close to a small room with lots of ceramic tile. I’m thinking that instead of drinking that disgusting stuff to prep for my next colonoscopy I will just go eat at J#@$%&......

Love, laugh, and always know where the nearest bathroom is

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi - Have you tried, or thought about trying Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)?

http://ldnforcrohns.blogspot.com

http;//www.wearecrohns.org/bobthomson70/journals

http://www.ldnnow.com
http://twitter.com/LDNNow

See also the LDN group on -

http://www.crohnsdiseasesn.com/

Sweetpea said...

Thanks Bob, I will look into that

Mr Betty Draper said...

Hey,

I feel for your struggle against this awful disease. I am just coming to terms with my diagnosis.

I'm 22 and I've just had a huge op to take out some small intestine that had become strictured and had pretty much made this last year of my life hell. Apparently one end of my small intestine had the circumference of a pinprick, and the other end the size of a donut, stretched out by the huge backlog caused by the pinprick end.

Anyway I had it all out, and now I have an ileostomy bag. Apparently they say that once I recover from the op I will be fully better, but I am terrified Crohn's is going to start attacking me again, maybe in my colon, and that my life might never be the same.

When were you diagnosed? And how rapidly has your life changed since then?

Considering my life was perfectly normal only a year ago, I'm terrified about what this disease can do!

Sweetpea said...

Hi,
Sorry just saw your comment.
I have had crohns since 1985 and had resection surgery shortly after. I had about 8 feet removed. I was sick for years before that so the diagnosis didn't cause a rapid change for me. The surgery was very successful although I continued to have lots and lots of BM's but no more pain. I was in "remission" till about the year 2000 and have been on several medications since. It has been a real struggle to stay upbeat. My kids keep me going. They play baseball and I love watching them play but it is a real challenge. Baseball fields are not crohns friendly so in order to go and watch them play I just don't eat. They play in traveling leagues so they can play 6 or more games in one weekend. I used to be able to skip meals no problem but now I get really bad headaches when I don't eat. They have come a long way since 1985 hopefully you will never have another problem with it again. Keep me posted on how you are doing and if you have any other questions or I can help in any way just let me know.