- Joined
- Mar 8, 2011
- Messages
- 5
I was always known in my family as being a candyaholic. I would have all my Halloween or Easter candy done by the day after the holiday. The earliest time I can remember feeling what I didn't know until 35 years later was Crohn's symptoms was around 9 years old. Over the years I referred to it as "my stomach hurts" and it did all the time! Man, every since I was diagnosed and had my surgery in 2009, I couldn't believe that old familiar stomach pain was really gone. The joy over that has been overpowered however by a new set of pain and complication. But one thing I have learned through the triumph of my children against the odds with one child having a brain tumor, followed by the other child losing her father to heart attack is: appreciate what you have right now no matter what. For instance, first after surgery I was immediately put on 6MP for my moderate to severe Crohn's. Within several months, I was hit with an attack of pancreatitis which ruled out 6MP. I found out one morning when I felt ill and vomited after taking my 6MP. I was at work when this happened and they called the emergency staff to assist but by the time they got there I felt better and was a little embarassed but I went ahead and agreed to going to the hospital in an ambulance from work because the kind of sudden sickness and vomiting that came on had not felt like a typical stomach upset. Boy, was I glad I did that because the emergency room was able to identify that I had a pancreatitis attack. They told me that had I not came in right away there is no way they would have known that is what happened to me. So, next I was put on IV dose of Remicade every three weeks. I stayed on that until 6 months later I started having awful and evolving pain that would begin in one wrist and grow to cover my left side to where I would end up in the emergency room and they would give me an IV painkiller. This went on about weekly for a couple of weeks before I went back to my gastro doctor and he took me off Remicade and put me on methotrexate which I have been taking ever since. He has told me that if anything changes I will go back on the steroids and start on Humira shots.
