The next nine months would prove the hardest and darkest of my life. And I don't remember most of it. It's all jumbled in my head as bits and pieces. Brief moments of life in between everything else.
My life was the in between. I wasn't dead but I wasn't living.
I was dying.
And I didn't even realize it until it was almost too late.
The first two months after the second surgery I was once again put on the narcotics for the pain because they worked better. And I started healing again. I had hope...briefly.
And then I went back on the Ultram. And things rapidly went back downhill. We still celebrated holidays that season but I hardly remember them.
The photos show a very thin me, smiling into the camera because it was Bean or Abu taking the photo and I was trying desperately to ignore the pain so I could have time with my kids. Hero Hottie looked like he could collapse if someone pushed him over. We were a mess as a family and trying to hold it together as best as we could.
But we were broken...emotionally.
By spring I was losing a few pounds a week even though I was forcing food down my throat. I wasn't digesting it though. By this point I started to suspect the Ultram. It was the only common factor in all this. I would start healing until I was put on it and then I would get worse.
I went off the Ultram.
My mood improved. The dark thoughts left, which helped me realize that I needed to do something to survive. But by that point that was about as much thinking as I could handle. I couldn't make a plan, I couldn't rise above the pain. My brain, probably from slowly starving to death, was incapable of making decisions.
I started blacking out in random locations inside the house. The blackness would descend on me, I would feel myself hit the floor and wake up minutes later, confused and in pain.
One time I collapsed in the kitchen in front of the girls and woke to find myself sobbing uncontrollably and their little faces just inches from mine, as they tried to shake me awake.
I tried to reassure them that I was okay. I just fell.
They didn't believe me. That's okay. I didn't believe me either.
Later, I would learn that my iron levels were so freaking low; they were part of the reason for passing out.
Now, at this point, I'm sure you're going to ask why the hell I didn't go back to the doctor. Well, I did and didn't. The surgeon was a great surgeon but he couldn't help me with my problems. I had check ups for my bottom, which still hadn't healed by this point but all he could say was I needed to go back to my other doctor.
My GI doctor just wanted to put me on Remicade and literally told me he wouldn't do anything else for me. But I knew that wasn't the answer. I knew my body enough to know that what was going on was more than just the Crohn's. It had to be the Ultram.
But I couldn't get the doctor to listen to me.
And unfortunately in my town, there is one GI clinic. One set of doctors with all the same procedures to deal with GI problems. My choices were limited. Severely.
By the end of May, no matter what I did or ate, I was still losing pounds by the week. I couldn't get my system to work. The only thing that seemed to help ease the stomach pains and cramping was a special herbal tea made with four herbs not picked for their taste but for their healing abilities. But I think so much damage was already done to my intestine by this point that it wasn't enough.
I would have to go back to the GI doctor and try to figure out something.
So I called and explained everything. The next appointment was a few weeks out with the Remicade doctor. Did I have a choice?
I asked if I could see any other doctor. Please. I was desperate. There had to be a doctor...somewhere...that had an answer for me.
"Well, if you want to see a different doctor, than you have to wait two months. But I have an appointment in July."
I sat on the edge of the bed, in my pajama bottoms and numbly told them I would call them back. I didn't know what to do. And I'm sure part of my indecision was that fact that my brain was not functioning all that well. The Ultram had messed with it, the lack of iron made it difficult to concentrate, and the lack of nutrients that my system was not absorbing was playing havoc with my mental abilities.
I made the appointment but Hero Hottie started dreaming that he kept seeing me in my coffin and he had to bury me, leaving him alone to raise our two girls. It was the only thing that made sense to me in my fuddled state. I knew I was going to die unless I did something. And I couldn't leave him. I couldn't leave our girls without their Mommy.
Bean and Abu had their birthday party with all my family on the same day. I laid on the couch, managed to watch them open their gifts and then collapsed onto the bed and listened to their happy voices celebrate their birthday without me, while I cried and stared at the ceiling. Please, God. Don't let them lose their Mommy.
On June 6th, 2006 I waited for Hero Hottie to get home from work. If the GI clinic couldn't fit me in any sooner than July than I would just have to go to the ER. I had ran out of choices and time.
At this point all I could think about was his dream of me dead. And I could feel it on the inside. I was dying.
They weighed me at the hospital. I was just 93 pounds. My usual is 135 but I had been a bit overweight at 165 when I started getting sick. I had lost over seventy pounds.
I didn't realize that it would be eleven days before I would set foot outside the hospital again.
No comments:
Post a Comment