Was having a bad tummy since Sunday night, and busy minding my own affairs last night while watching "Fracture" on Netflix when all of a sudden I had a bad case of the throw ups. Over and over and over. Felt so bad having to pause the movie, starring the great Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling (much ado about very little, if you ask me!), a few times. Now my doctor wants to admit me to hospital to "rule out infection, scan for possible obstruction, rehydrate me and rest my gut" while stuffing me with i/v steroids to induce a quick remission. I said okay. What else to say? One week I'm in KL munching hokkien mee with no problems, next week I'm back in Singapore, too sick to keep anything down. Something is wrong. Time to find out what. I need my life back on a steady track. Whatever it takes to induce remission. Yeah. I'm kinda fed up lah. Life stresses are affecting me big time, though I suspect it's an infection also this time. And people ask me why I don't travel to third world countries. This is why. Living in a developed nation like Singapore is tough enough for someone like me with a faulty immune system. If I visit India I might come home in a box. Not quite ready for that! Have to drink some liquids now so I can plump up my veins for the i/v drip. Otherwise they literally dig for a vein. I hate that. Hurts like hell. Today I am all teary and tired. Two decades of diarrhoea is one thing. Vomiting last night... I just hate that. Time to pack my little hospital bag. This Crohn's patient is off to hospital.
30th March 2017
Going home today. MRI shows narrowing but no obstruction of the gut. No infection found. Crohn's is flaring up badly. Going to have my 2nd dose of i/v Entyvio along with painkillers and steroids today before leaving. Hoping it helps. Came to the hospital with blood pressure of 88 over 50, leaving today with 105 over 55. I have the BP of an athlete at rest. :) hah! I might just live to be 100. The thought is a trifle depressing. Crohn's doesn't kill you, but it drains the life out of you. When you walk up a flight of stairs and everything hurts and you know you have to keep going tomorrow and keep a smile on for everybody else when all you want to do is sleep forever... that's when you ask yourself if living till a ripe old age is really worth it. I'm 50 this year and I swear this disease has aged me. It gets me down but I don't stay down. For every person who abandoned me on this journey, I wish them well. But hey, God continues to send people who choose to walk with me. It's a choice, really, to walk with those who are ill or dying or bereaved or grieving some loss in their life. Chronic illness is a loss. A great and terrible loss of energy and zest for life and so much more. And yet so many of us who live with different versions of chronic illness keep going with a smile and a determination that is unique to us. The healthy can never know what it means to be cheerful and strong when our body fails us, or to fail to be joyful and brave when our body gives way... you can't know this or the guilt we feel while you are whole yourself. Empathy may help but lived experience triumphs empathy any day. The healthy will only understand when they suffer themselves. That's just life. For now I look forward to better days and to growing older as gracefully as I can. I hope to live long and prosper but only because my perspective of what it means to prosper doesn't revolve around finances or wealth or status or power. It's love and peace and a God given joy in life. That's what I want. Simplicity in life and a deep appreciation for the beauty of all that is good in the world. Life is a journey, I believe, and my destination lies elsewhere. My soul says so. Someone calls from beyond this existence and all of my life is but a preparation. God is my destination. Whatever life holds, bring it on. I've seen better days, I've known worse days. This, too, shall pass. Eventually, my life will be over in the twinkling of an eye. Best enjoy the best of it now. Kids and dogs and my own bed, here I come! (Pix of me in the morning sun a few weeks ago, post walkies. No nice hospital pix. Terrible lighting! Heh!)
