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In Sickness and in Health: My Wife has Crohn's

I’m the husband of a Crohn’s sufferer. When my wife feels pain in her bowels, I feel it in my heart. We are married in sickness and in health and this disease has brought us closer together. This is our story about discovering her Crohn’s disease from my perspective.

It was 2009 and I was between deployments. I was fresh back from Iraq and heading to Afghanistan in a few months. With seven years in the military as a Special Operator my focus was on my job. My wife, an amazing women, understood my challenges and always put my needs first. She internalized her pain and dealt with her loneliness and fear as best she could. She had a stressful job and ate on the go. One afternoon she had stomach pains. She took Tylenol, but the pains continued and got worse--much worse.

We knew Megan was sick. However, we didn't know what was causing the sickness. Her symptoms were extreme and frequent abdominal pain and she often had diarrhea. We noticed that she felt the most pain after she ate. She starting eating less food and less often. This caused her to lose weight and energy. She was also working hard at a stressful job. She had an English degree, but the job market was bad, so she had few options. She wanted to work and contribute to our income so she stuck with it.

Megan tried a few things to help ease her pain. She often used a heat blanket draped over her stomach. She used Tylenol a few times a day. Her pain was barely manageable. She went to the doctor and they didn't have many answers. They ordered blood tests. She did test after test after test. Often, we never even heard back about the tests.

Her pain was so severe that I took her to the ER. We waited for a few hours to be seen and they said they couldn't help her. The receptionist was oddly rude. The next day I went straight to my First Sergeant and laid out all the details. I was really upset, because we never heard back about her blood tests. The following day the medical center called us four times with all sorts of updates. It's unfortunate that many people in the military don't do their jobs until someone of authority pushes them. The blood tests indicated something intestinal and we were referred to Gastroenterology Specialists (GI). The GI specialist conducted a Colonoscopy and Gastroscopy procedure. They concluded she had Crohn's disease.

This part of her story is a bit fuzzy for me. As I reflect on this point I feel a small sense of guilt. I thought, well, she just has to do what her doctor says and we'll be OK. She can take some medication and we can go back to life as normal. But that turned out not to be true. The doctor ordered her all kinds of medication. In truth, I don't know everything she had to take, but I knew it was a lot. One thing she had to take was steroids.

Her intestines were damaged and needed repair. The steroids were supposed to help her intestines repair. She was still working hard and often eating out. She didn't have a workout routine. The steroids caused her to gain weight and reduced her confidence. They did help her get better, though. The other medication she took helped her too.

Her iron count was low. This is a very common symptom for Crohn's sufferers, especially women. She had to take iron supplements. This is the part that most directly affected me. The iron supplements caused her the most wretched flatulence. Honestly, in all my years in the military and having gone to the darkest and nastiest places and been around some very crude people, I had never smelled anything as awful as this new aroma. That wasn't the worst problem of our new situation.

Her heavy medication meant she may not be able to be pregnant. We didn't and still don't have any kids. We would love to have kids. But the doctors said her pregnancies would be very complicated and dangerous. She would have to take medications intravenously and likely have a Cesarean section. Scary.

Megan had a choice: a life of medication, scary pregnancies, and doctor dependencies or change her lifestyle. My wife is beautiful, yes, and she is also smart and determined and self sufficient.

I soon left for another dangerous deployment. Undaunted she searched for natural remedies. She quickly learned that, in some causes, Crohn's disease may be caused by stress, unhealthy foods, lack of exercise, and family history. Armed with knowledge she began to change her lifestyle choices. She changed her diet. She did an immense amount of research into what foods were safe and what foods were not safe. While the answer is unique for every single Crohn’s sufferer she found what works for her.

I came home from deployment and I had a new wife. My beautiful bride had transformed herself. I was and am so proud of her. She proved there is hope for mild Crohn's sufferers to live a normal life. I then worked for years to convince her to share her story. She had so much value to give to other people who had similar struggles. She was embarrassed and not sure how to share with people. Eventually she combined her talents. She used her writing skills with her knowledge of healthy living to make a blog at FollowMeg.com.

She writes daily about healthy living. That's, because health is a daily choice--a moment by moment choice. Despite all the things I've seen and done, I consider my wife my hero. Maybe someday we will also enjoy having children.

I now view my role as her supporter. I try to educate people on what is Crohn’s. When we are invited to friends’ houses, I politely inform the hostess about Megan’s dietary needs.

I know there people with more severe cases of IBD than my wife. I also know it’s not as simple as “change your life” for many people. I can only imagine how irritating it must be for someone with a severe cause of Crohn’s to be told that. I’ve learned a great deal of empathy reading some of the stories on this forum. I often wonder, is there more we can do to help everyone? This forum is doing a great job of it, thanks.
 
Welcome Jason:welcome: and thanks for sharing your story. Agree the hardest part of being a spouse of a Crohnie is seeing your spouse hurting/suffering. My hubby has had Crohn's for 24 years now and what gets us through the good/ bad day's is prayer and our faith.
 
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