R
ReeRee
Guest
Hi! My name is Robbie, Ree for short if you like. My whole family calls me Ree, as well as most of my friends, but I'll answer to Robb, or Hey You..ha. 
I'm from Louisiana, born and bred. I'm a single mom to 2 wonderful kids, Ashley who is 22 now and in college, and Josh who is 15 and we homeschool but he's in 10th grade as of now. We also have 3 dogs, Charlie, a CharPei/Pitbull/German Shepard mix who is goofy as the day is long, Missy, my Rat Terrier, and Izzy, 'cause we don't know what kind of dog Is He....get it? Is he...Izzy? Oh well. I've got a pretty twisted sense of humor as you will all see soon enough, but I hope I'm not offensive to anyone. I've just found that with Crohn's, it's better to laugh about it than cry, because once you start crying about it, it's awful hard to stop.
My life with Crohn's....whew..where do I start? I guess the beginning would be a good place.
I've had Crohn's since I was 14, at least that's as far back as I can trace the symptoms. It started with the basic symptoms, fevers for no reason, terrible stomach pain, and what my Pops calls "the back door trots". My mom started taking me to one doctor after another and we were told everything from I just had ulcers, to I was making it all up for attention, to Anorexia and Bulimia, to I was just crazy and they should commit me to a hospital and forget about me, to I was on drugs. This went on for 5 years and I had accepted the fact that whatever was wrong with me, nobody knew what it was and I should just pretend there was nothing wrong. So I went on with life as best I could.
When I was 16, i had my daughter and things got worse. I think I need to point out here that there are many dynamics in my life that had nothing whatsoever to do with my disease, but in turn, they affected it greatly. Emotions, stress, turmoil, all of that has a negative effect on Crohn's.
After my daughter was born, the symptoms went from bad to very bad. On top of becoming a new mom at age 16 (which I don't recommend to anyone altho I wouldn't change it now for the world), I was finishing high school, starting Vocational Technical school, and blah blah blah. The pain got worse, the fevers got more frequent, the "trots" got worse, my weight went from 309 lbs to 140 lbs with no dieting, and still nobody believed me when I said there was something wrong.
I feel I need to add here that I have 2 sisters, one older and one younger. Yeah, yeah, that makes me the "neglected middle child" We've never been close, they've never supported me, and they've both done things to hinder any support from other people...i.e. people in the church, people in the community, etc. But that's a whole other post..lol. To this day, they don't believe there's anything wrong with me and they'll tell anybody who will listen that I fake it all for the attention. I spent a lot of years trying to be accepted by them and be their friend/sister, but there are some things you just can't change and I've accepted that. Moving on......
When I was 19, I got married to the first guy who asked, and moved to Atlanta GA. I loved it there and landed the best job on earth with a publishing company as Assistant Manager of Accounts Receivable. I was in charge of all billing accounts. How's that for a low-stress job..hahahha! Anyhow, I started to get even sicker and lost down to 110 lbs. One day a lady in my office told me she had made me an appointment with her family doctor and I was going whether I liked it or not. I was still pretending there was nothing wrong because that's what I'd been conditioned to do to survive in the real world. So I relented and I went with her to her doctor.
I owe that lady my life. This doctor took one good long look at me and said the words I'd been praying for for 5 long years, "I think I can help you". I broke down and cried. He told me about Crohn's Disease and it scared the beejeezes out of me and I cried even harder, but he held my hand and patted my back and let me cry on his shoulder. I was relieved and terrified all at the same time. He told me he was referring me to a gastroenterologist for tests and made me the appointment. I went home and told my new husband and the next week he drove me to the hospital for the tests, you know the one, the "Scope"...*shiver*. Four hours later, they released me and my wonderful husband yelled and screamed at me for taking so long. He refused to help me to the car and made me walk. When I collapsed in the parking lot, he got the car and practically threw me in and he yelled at me all the way home.
The following week I was back at Dr. Sunshine's office (yes that was his real name..lol) for the results. He told me that I did indeed have Crohn's Disease and that it was the absolute worse form of the disease. He told me that I was the worse case he'd ever seen and 3 years later he wrote a paper on me that was published in the AMA Magazine. (My one claim to fame...lol) He put me on Prednisone and other meds and things got better. I went right home and called my MOm and Pop and told them the news and it was then that they realized that I had been telling them the truth the whole time.
Life was good for the next 3 years. I loved my job, my health was improving, I could eat again and actually sit thru a movie without running to the bathroom. My wonderful husband, however, turned out to be the single most bad decision I'd ever made. He was abusive, he drank too much, and he was doing lots of drugs and bringing home his drug friends all the time. So on top of my stressful job, I had a very stressful home life as well. Then I got pregnant with my son Josh. Dr. Sunshine told me not to worry, that everything should go fine because I had acheived remission, but that following the birth I would need to be with my family because he was pretty sure things would flare up and get really bad after that. So I had to tell my hubby that we had to move back to Louisiana, which he didn't want to do.
Josh was born in 1990 healthy and normal and 6 weeks later, we moved home. Good thing too. Five months after that I understood what Dr. S had been trying to tell me. Not only did things get worse, they were so bad that I spend the next year and a half in and out of the hospital....for a grand total of 7 1/2 months! I finally ended up having surgery to remove 2 feet of colon, my ilium, and 4 feet of small intestine.
I divorced my wonderful hasbeen in 1995 I think. The next 16 years passed in a blur. I was in and out of hospitals having this surgery or that surgery, this procedure or that procedure. I got married and divorced AGAIN. I guess it's hard to watch the person you love and swore to love and honor in sickness and in health suffer so much. I learned to live with my disease and be happy anyway...boy was that a hard lesson to learn.
This post would be 12 pages long if I didn't stop here. In the past 16 years, I've had 8 more surgeries, taken every drug there is for crohn's, had nearly every complication you could have. Right now I have my 2nd temporary colostomy. My remaining colon and small intestines are riddled with fistulae that connect with almost every other organ in my abdomen. I've spent the past 3 or 4 years trying to get healthy enough for my next surgery to repair all the fistulae and damage caused by Lotronex, a drug I was given that was removed from the market for which I got a nice settlement but not nearly enough in my opinion. I've had absesses, masses removed, and I almost died 3 times in 2001 when I spent 3 months in the hospital with obstructions and ruptures and ended up with sepsis, a serious, almost always fatal blood infection that shut down my kidneys, liver, and God only knows what else.
At my last doctor's visit, he told me with a great big grin that my liver function is now finally almost normal again!!! YAY! Bout time. I'm on a list of meds a foot long, but they're working for me right now. I'm just waiting for Doc to tell me we can do the surgery.
I haven't been able to work since my son was born and I've been on SSI Disability forever it seems like. But I'm happy and well adjusted, at least I think so. I would love nothing more than to help other people with Crohn's. As crazy as this sounds, as long as I've had this disease, I've only met 2 other people with it. Now I have everybody here and it is WONDERFUL!!! I can't wait to meet everybody and read everybody's stories.
I just want everybody here to know that I'm here for anybody who needs to talk or rant or rave or cry or cuss because I've been where you all are and I'll probably be there again eventually.
Sorry this was so long, but hey, it could have been longer..haha.
I'm from Louisiana, born and bred. I'm a single mom to 2 wonderful kids, Ashley who is 22 now and in college, and Josh who is 15 and we homeschool but he's in 10th grade as of now. We also have 3 dogs, Charlie, a CharPei/Pitbull/German Shepard mix who is goofy as the day is long, Missy, my Rat Terrier, and Izzy, 'cause we don't know what kind of dog Is He....get it? Is he...Izzy? Oh well. I've got a pretty twisted sense of humor as you will all see soon enough, but I hope I'm not offensive to anyone. I've just found that with Crohn's, it's better to laugh about it than cry, because once you start crying about it, it's awful hard to stop. My life with Crohn's....whew..where do I start? I guess the beginning would be a good place.
I've had Crohn's since I was 14, at least that's as far back as I can trace the symptoms. It started with the basic symptoms, fevers for no reason, terrible stomach pain, and what my Pops calls "the back door trots". My mom started taking me to one doctor after another and we were told everything from I just had ulcers, to I was making it all up for attention, to Anorexia and Bulimia, to I was just crazy and they should commit me to a hospital and forget about me, to I was on drugs. This went on for 5 years and I had accepted the fact that whatever was wrong with me, nobody knew what it was and I should just pretend there was nothing wrong. So I went on with life as best I could.
When I was 16, i had my daughter and things got worse. I think I need to point out here that there are many dynamics in my life that had nothing whatsoever to do with my disease, but in turn, they affected it greatly. Emotions, stress, turmoil, all of that has a negative effect on Crohn's.
After my daughter was born, the symptoms went from bad to very bad. On top of becoming a new mom at age 16 (which I don't recommend to anyone altho I wouldn't change it now for the world), I was finishing high school, starting Vocational Technical school, and blah blah blah. The pain got worse, the fevers got more frequent, the "trots" got worse, my weight went from 309 lbs to 140 lbs with no dieting, and still nobody believed me when I said there was something wrong.
I feel I need to add here that I have 2 sisters, one older and one younger. Yeah, yeah, that makes me the "neglected middle child"
We've never been close, they've never supported me, and they've both done things to hinder any support from other people...i.e. people in the church, people in the community, etc. But that's a whole other post..lol. To this day, they don't believe there's anything wrong with me and they'll tell anybody who will listen that I fake it all for the attention. I spent a lot of years trying to be accepted by them and be their friend/sister, but there are some things you just can't change and I've accepted that. Moving on...... When I was 19, I got married to the first guy who asked, and moved to Atlanta GA. I loved it there and landed the best job on earth with a publishing company as Assistant Manager of Accounts Receivable. I was in charge of all billing accounts. How's that for a low-stress job..hahahha! Anyhow, I started to get even sicker and lost down to 110 lbs. One day a lady in my office told me she had made me an appointment with her family doctor and I was going whether I liked it or not. I was still pretending there was nothing wrong because that's what I'd been conditioned to do to survive in the real world. So I relented and I went with her to her doctor.
I owe that lady my life. This doctor took one good long look at me and said the words I'd been praying for for 5 long years, "I think I can help you". I broke down and cried. He told me about Crohn's Disease and it scared the beejeezes out of me and I cried even harder, but he held my hand and patted my back and let me cry on his shoulder. I was relieved and terrified all at the same time. He told me he was referring me to a gastroenterologist for tests and made me the appointment. I went home and told my new husband and the next week he drove me to the hospital for the tests, you know the one, the "Scope"...*shiver*. Four hours later, they released me and my wonderful husband yelled and screamed at me for taking so long. He refused to help me to the car and made me walk. When I collapsed in the parking lot, he got the car and practically threw me in and he yelled at me all the way home.
The following week I was back at Dr. Sunshine's office (yes that was his real name..lol) for the results. He told me that I did indeed have Crohn's Disease and that it was the absolute worse form of the disease. He told me that I was the worse case he'd ever seen and 3 years later he wrote a paper on me that was published in the AMA Magazine. (My one claim to fame...lol) He put me on Prednisone and other meds and things got better. I went right home and called my MOm and Pop and told them the news and it was then that they realized that I had been telling them the truth the whole time.
Life was good for the next 3 years. I loved my job, my health was improving, I could eat again and actually sit thru a movie without running to the bathroom. My wonderful husband, however, turned out to be the single most bad decision I'd ever made. He was abusive, he drank too much, and he was doing lots of drugs and bringing home his drug friends all the time. So on top of my stressful job, I had a very stressful home life as well. Then I got pregnant with my son Josh. Dr. Sunshine told me not to worry, that everything should go fine because I had acheived remission, but that following the birth I would need to be with my family because he was pretty sure things would flare up and get really bad after that. So I had to tell my hubby that we had to move back to Louisiana, which he didn't want to do.
Josh was born in 1990 healthy and normal and 6 weeks later, we moved home. Good thing too. Five months after that I understood what Dr. S had been trying to tell me. Not only did things get worse, they were so bad that I spend the next year and a half in and out of the hospital....for a grand total of 7 1/2 months! I finally ended up having surgery to remove 2 feet of colon, my ilium, and 4 feet of small intestine.
I divorced my wonderful hasbeen in 1995 I think. The next 16 years passed in a blur. I was in and out of hospitals having this surgery or that surgery, this procedure or that procedure. I got married and divorced AGAIN. I guess it's hard to watch the person you love and swore to love and honor in sickness and in health suffer so much. I learned to live with my disease and be happy anyway...boy was that a hard lesson to learn.
This post would be 12 pages long if I didn't stop here. In the past 16 years, I've had 8 more surgeries, taken every drug there is for crohn's, had nearly every complication you could have. Right now I have my 2nd temporary colostomy. My remaining colon and small intestines are riddled with fistulae that connect with almost every other organ in my abdomen. I've spent the past 3 or 4 years trying to get healthy enough for my next surgery to repair all the fistulae and damage caused by Lotronex, a drug I was given that was removed from the market for which I got a nice settlement but not nearly enough in my opinion. I've had absesses, masses removed, and I almost died 3 times in 2001 when I spent 3 months in the hospital with obstructions and ruptures and ended up with sepsis, a serious, almost always fatal blood infection that shut down my kidneys, liver, and God only knows what else.
At my last doctor's visit, he told me with a great big grin that my liver function is now finally almost normal again!!! YAY! Bout time. I'm on a list of meds a foot long, but they're working for me right now. I'm just waiting for Doc to tell me we can do the surgery.
I haven't been able to work since my son was born and I've been on SSI Disability forever it seems like. But I'm happy and well adjusted, at least I think so. I would love nothing more than to help other people with Crohn's. As crazy as this sounds, as long as I've had this disease, I've only met 2 other people with it. Now I have everybody here and it is WONDERFUL!!! I can't wait to meet everybody and read everybody's stories.
I just want everybody here to know that I'm here for anybody who needs to talk or rant or rave or cry or cuss because I've been where you all are and I'll probably be there again eventually.
Sorry this was so long, but hey, it could have been longer..haha.
