Hello all this is my first post on this forum, so I figured telling my story/a little about myself would probably be a better start before I jump over to another section to ask more targeted questions about the latest bane to my existence.
My Name is Robert, I'm now 22 years old and I am a manager and a delivery driver for a pizza franchise. My problems began on a Thursday night, I usually work the graveyard shift but this night was different I instead only worked a 5-9 shift meaning I worked the dinner rush and when things cooled off I did my deployment (Cleaning/Prep) and went home. Unfortunately I was feeling sick to my stomach I had some light stomach pain, I assumed it might have been from drinking too many sodas on an empty stomach (Its a very similar sensation) so I grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza and ate it. Well that night I was working as a delivery driver so I went on a delivery feeling nausea the entire time I tried to keep it together in the car and put on a brave face in front of the person I was delivering pizza too. Worried I might be getting sick I avoided handling any food and I was going to do my deployment as soon as I got back and leave early.
On the way back to the store I had to pull over in the turn lane and flash my emergency flashers because I was going to throw up. I ended up puking up the pizza and some coke into a grocery bag (I keep plenty of them in my car for receipts that customers never take and what are known as routing receipts which list your pizza, side items and address information+contact information in-case we have trouble locating you or you don't answer the door.) At this point I knew I needed to go home, so my job was to take out the trash after puking one more time at the store in a can and changing the liners I cashed out and went to the store for some medicine.
I picked up some Pepto-Max and took a dose in the car on the way home. When I got home I proceeded to puke pink for the next half hour. After my stomach was empty came the diarrhea non-stop every 2-5 minutes and the stomach pain kept growing. I ended up calling out sick from work for Friday and keep this from being a novel I am going to hit the cliff notes and details.
It got to the point where I was moaning and groaning so much in pain and I couldn't eat anything without me throwing it up out of sheer pain so my grandmother (Who I ironically look after in her old age) took me to my parents place to pick up my insurance card only to find my parents suffering from similar stomach problems! They notified me that they ate from another pizza place belonging to the same franchise. At this point I was worried but I was in too much pain to do anything. We go to the hospital near my parents place at which point they give me some morphine I then immediately text my boss and let him know of a possible foodborne illness outbreak and I would keep him notified of my condition. At this point I end up getting admitted and stay overnight at the hospital while they wait on tests from urine, blood and stool samples. Every 4 hours like clockwork I get my morphine shot or else I am screaming in pain. Around 8 PM they say they are discharging me with some anti-nausea meds saying my stomach pain is probably from not eating. So I get the rectal nausea pills and I head home, still under the influence of morphine and pass out I wake up the next morning and I don't even have a chance to take the pills because I am in so much pain I am vomiting uncontrollably there is blood in my vomit and so much blood in my stool it coming out jet black. My grandmother takes me again to the hospital (The one near our house) they shoot me up with drugs again, do blood work, stool and urine and send me upstairs. This time I am faced with 4 doctors standing over me and they all are saying something different. The GI doctor thinks I have ulcers, Crohns or colitis. He proceeds to run a extensive array of tests including a Colonoscopy and a Endoscopy. Here is where the story starts to get fun. I didn't drink any diuretic for the Colonoscopy because it was such a rush job so he had the joyous fun of flushing me right there on the bed. Which I had the joyous fun of waking up to lying in my own fecal matter. I immediately got up to the shock and alarm of the nurse watching over me and ran into the bathroom, after changing my gown and cleaning myself up a bit I came back to a freshly linen'd bed. They took me back to my room where I spent the next 3 days getting bloodwork at 3 in the morning being shot up with morphine to keep me from biting a chunk out of my pillow and getting pumped up with 6 different types of Antibiotics. Of course my rash appears and then I am sporadically tested to make sure I am not allergic to Antibiotics they then assign the rash on my legs, arms and chest as part of the disease. The GI doctor is worried so he calls in a CDC doctor who specializes in Infectious Diseases and I am quarantined while they run labs for everything, AIDS, Hep C, Hep A, Hep B, TB, probably even Swine Flu. etc.
They all come back clean so she says her job is done there is no evidence this is contagious and hands it back the GI doctor who is trying to figure out how many more antibiotics he can put me on at once. All the while I am drugged up, not eating and sleeping 15 hours a day.
After a while the rash clears up a bit and the GI doctor says my white count is going down so he is releasing me with a crap ton of antibiotics some percocet and some probiotics. I go home and I am pretty much feeling slightly better until I run out of pain meds. Then it was right back to the hospital. They ended up upping my pain meds my white count went back up, I got stuck every night for blood work and some of the antibiotics or an IV that slipped out ended up causing my hands to swell to the size of oven mitts. Needless to say I wasn't happy. They then ran more tests and determined it was Colitis and start giving me steroids and I magically started feeling better combined with the pain killers i could walk around the hospital and watch TV and even eat. By this time I had been in the hospital for 3 weeks so I was happy that something was finally working. They send me home with the expensive steroids more antibiotics and painkillers and surprise surprise I was a productive member of the family and I was even talking about heading back to work until the painkillers ran out. The steroids that I took 3 times a day helped for about an hour after I took them but to get me between doses I needed painkillers but I ran out. So my dad said enough is enough so he took me to Tampa General Hospital. After a long wait to get medical records from an unaffiliated hospital they ran some tests and saw I wasn't biopsy'ed during my colonoscopy so I had to have it redone. So I drank the massive amount of diuretic and got a biopsy. Had a swab stuck in my nostril for Czars testing. Got stabbed with a blood thinner had to drink more liquid for a CT Scan and even more liquid for a MRI and it felt like they were making me more sick with the contrasts than I was to begin with. I also had to fight them for my pain control because I was 22 and they didn't wanna give me anything too strong so I was at 1 mg of Morphine every 6 hours and my pain level was at a 10 I was screaming, literally screaming and they refused until the doctor saw me. He then changed it to 4 hours of 5mg morphine and to make sure I lasted in between doses threw in 30 mg tablets of Oxycodone but eventually I was taking them both at once and sleeping for 3-6 hours after I got dosed, if I didn't the walls would spin and I could barely walk to the bathroom without using my infusion machine rack as crutch.
Eventually they started me on steroids but they also gave me another pill Pantoprazole. Told me to eat a lot of yogurt because of the nuking the other hospital did to my stomach and I started to feel better but no one knew what was wrong with me. I slowly took my pain meds less and less and eventually I didn't need them anymore they took me off the IV because I was eating whole food and hydrating normally. I even changed into normal clothes and walked around the halls talking to nurses and techs even visited the Starbucks on the ground floor. The nurses loved me because I let them give me medication and draw blood with no fuss and I was completely cool now that I wasn't bawling over in pain. Eventually the results came in and they found out I have Crohn's Disease in my Upper Intestinal Tract. Apparently it is really rare and it is almost impossible to scope the upper intestine without slicing you open. So they gave me Pantoprazole and Prednisone (Stepdown or something like that I take less and less over time) As for dietary changes I cook a lot more meals at home and I don't eat pizza from work anymore, if I get hungry at work I run across the street to a gas station that sells czar salads and grab myself one of those. Mostly I am mad because of the cancer risk of the disease, genetic ramifications and the fact I will have flare ups. I'm not as concerned as I once was because it turns out a coworker has Crohns as well and he rarely gets flare-ups and he says Prednisone from the hospital will knock it right out the in initial diagnosis is always the worst part.
I guess I hit the genetic short straw for my family. I have the joyous medical history that now reads:
Type I: Bipolar Disorder
Meniere's disease
and *NEW* Crohn's Disease.
It's bad enough I get mood swings to go with my random deafness, loss of balance and that ringing in your ears. Now I get to deal with stomach pain, vomiting and bowel problems.
It's also great because my 3 diseases hate each other.
Bipolar Medication effects Crohn's Disease medication negatively and vice versa while my Meniere's Disease medication is an Antibiotic that is known to cause Kidney Failure so it doesn't work well with Crohn's Disease meds. So my GI is still scratching his head on what to prescribe me when I am off my doses of meds from the hospital and resume my normal medication of Lithium and Neomycin, maybe they can try switching me to a stronger steroid that effects my Crohns and stops my Vertigo from Meniere's. But my vertigo and other nasty side effects of Meniere's is well controlled on Neomycin the only effect I deal with now is sometimes my hearing cuts out and I need to wear my aids.
My Name is Robert, I'm now 22 years old and I am a manager and a delivery driver for a pizza franchise. My problems began on a Thursday night, I usually work the graveyard shift but this night was different I instead only worked a 5-9 shift meaning I worked the dinner rush and when things cooled off I did my deployment (Cleaning/Prep) and went home. Unfortunately I was feeling sick to my stomach I had some light stomach pain, I assumed it might have been from drinking too many sodas on an empty stomach (Its a very similar sensation) so I grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza and ate it. Well that night I was working as a delivery driver so I went on a delivery feeling nausea the entire time I tried to keep it together in the car and put on a brave face in front of the person I was delivering pizza too. Worried I might be getting sick I avoided handling any food and I was going to do my deployment as soon as I got back and leave early.
On the way back to the store I had to pull over in the turn lane and flash my emergency flashers because I was going to throw up. I ended up puking up the pizza and some coke into a grocery bag (I keep plenty of them in my car for receipts that customers never take and what are known as routing receipts which list your pizza, side items and address information+contact information in-case we have trouble locating you or you don't answer the door.) At this point I knew I needed to go home, so my job was to take out the trash after puking one more time at the store in a can and changing the liners I cashed out and went to the store for some medicine.
I picked up some Pepto-Max and took a dose in the car on the way home. When I got home I proceeded to puke pink for the next half hour. After my stomach was empty came the diarrhea non-stop every 2-5 minutes and the stomach pain kept growing. I ended up calling out sick from work for Friday and keep this from being a novel I am going to hit the cliff notes and details.
It got to the point where I was moaning and groaning so much in pain and I couldn't eat anything without me throwing it up out of sheer pain so my grandmother (Who I ironically look after in her old age) took me to my parents place to pick up my insurance card only to find my parents suffering from similar stomach problems! They notified me that they ate from another pizza place belonging to the same franchise. At this point I was worried but I was in too much pain to do anything. We go to the hospital near my parents place at which point they give me some morphine I then immediately text my boss and let him know of a possible foodborne illness outbreak and I would keep him notified of my condition. At this point I end up getting admitted and stay overnight at the hospital while they wait on tests from urine, blood and stool samples. Every 4 hours like clockwork I get my morphine shot or else I am screaming in pain. Around 8 PM they say they are discharging me with some anti-nausea meds saying my stomach pain is probably from not eating. So I get the rectal nausea pills and I head home, still under the influence of morphine and pass out I wake up the next morning and I don't even have a chance to take the pills because I am in so much pain I am vomiting uncontrollably there is blood in my vomit and so much blood in my stool it coming out jet black. My grandmother takes me again to the hospital (The one near our house) they shoot me up with drugs again, do blood work, stool and urine and send me upstairs. This time I am faced with 4 doctors standing over me and they all are saying something different. The GI doctor thinks I have ulcers, Crohns or colitis. He proceeds to run a extensive array of tests including a Colonoscopy and a Endoscopy. Here is where the story starts to get fun. I didn't drink any diuretic for the Colonoscopy because it was such a rush job so he had the joyous fun of flushing me right there on the bed. Which I had the joyous fun of waking up to lying in my own fecal matter. I immediately got up to the shock and alarm of the nurse watching over me and ran into the bathroom, after changing my gown and cleaning myself up a bit I came back to a freshly linen'd bed. They took me back to my room where I spent the next 3 days getting bloodwork at 3 in the morning being shot up with morphine to keep me from biting a chunk out of my pillow and getting pumped up with 6 different types of Antibiotics. Of course my rash appears and then I am sporadically tested to make sure I am not allergic to Antibiotics they then assign the rash on my legs, arms and chest as part of the disease. The GI doctor is worried so he calls in a CDC doctor who specializes in Infectious Diseases and I am quarantined while they run labs for everything, AIDS, Hep C, Hep A, Hep B, TB, probably even Swine Flu. etc.
They all come back clean so she says her job is done there is no evidence this is contagious and hands it back the GI doctor who is trying to figure out how many more antibiotics he can put me on at once. All the while I am drugged up, not eating and sleeping 15 hours a day.
After a while the rash clears up a bit and the GI doctor says my white count is going down so he is releasing me with a crap ton of antibiotics some percocet and some probiotics. I go home and I am pretty much feeling slightly better until I run out of pain meds. Then it was right back to the hospital. They ended up upping my pain meds my white count went back up, I got stuck every night for blood work and some of the antibiotics or an IV that slipped out ended up causing my hands to swell to the size of oven mitts. Needless to say I wasn't happy. They then ran more tests and determined it was Colitis and start giving me steroids and I magically started feeling better combined with the pain killers i could walk around the hospital and watch TV and even eat. By this time I had been in the hospital for 3 weeks so I was happy that something was finally working. They send me home with the expensive steroids more antibiotics and painkillers and surprise surprise I was a productive member of the family and I was even talking about heading back to work until the painkillers ran out. The steroids that I took 3 times a day helped for about an hour after I took them but to get me between doses I needed painkillers but I ran out. So my dad said enough is enough so he took me to Tampa General Hospital. After a long wait to get medical records from an unaffiliated hospital they ran some tests and saw I wasn't biopsy'ed during my colonoscopy so I had to have it redone. So I drank the massive amount of diuretic and got a biopsy. Had a swab stuck in my nostril for Czars testing. Got stabbed with a blood thinner had to drink more liquid for a CT Scan and even more liquid for a MRI and it felt like they were making me more sick with the contrasts than I was to begin with. I also had to fight them for my pain control because I was 22 and they didn't wanna give me anything too strong so I was at 1 mg of Morphine every 6 hours and my pain level was at a 10 I was screaming, literally screaming and they refused until the doctor saw me. He then changed it to 4 hours of 5mg morphine and to make sure I lasted in between doses threw in 30 mg tablets of Oxycodone but eventually I was taking them both at once and sleeping for 3-6 hours after I got dosed, if I didn't the walls would spin and I could barely walk to the bathroom without using my infusion machine rack as crutch.
Eventually they started me on steroids but they also gave me another pill Pantoprazole. Told me to eat a lot of yogurt because of the nuking the other hospital did to my stomach and I started to feel better but no one knew what was wrong with me. I slowly took my pain meds less and less and eventually I didn't need them anymore they took me off the IV because I was eating whole food and hydrating normally. I even changed into normal clothes and walked around the halls talking to nurses and techs even visited the Starbucks on the ground floor. The nurses loved me because I let them give me medication and draw blood with no fuss and I was completely cool now that I wasn't bawling over in pain. Eventually the results came in and they found out I have Crohn's Disease in my Upper Intestinal Tract. Apparently it is really rare and it is almost impossible to scope the upper intestine without slicing you open. So they gave me Pantoprazole and Prednisone (Stepdown or something like that I take less and less over time) As for dietary changes I cook a lot more meals at home and I don't eat pizza from work anymore, if I get hungry at work I run across the street to a gas station that sells czar salads and grab myself one of those. Mostly I am mad because of the cancer risk of the disease, genetic ramifications and the fact I will have flare ups. I'm not as concerned as I once was because it turns out a coworker has Crohns as well and he rarely gets flare-ups and he says Prednisone from the hospital will knock it right out the in initial diagnosis is always the worst part.
I guess I hit the genetic short straw for my family. I have the joyous medical history that now reads:
Type I: Bipolar Disorder
Meniere's disease
and *NEW* Crohn's Disease.
It's bad enough I get mood swings to go with my random deafness, loss of balance and that ringing in your ears. Now I get to deal with stomach pain, vomiting and bowel problems.
It's also great because my 3 diseases hate each other.
Bipolar Medication effects Crohn's Disease medication negatively and vice versa while my Meniere's Disease medication is an Antibiotic that is known to cause Kidney Failure so it doesn't work well with Crohn's Disease meds. So my GI is still scratching his head on what to prescribe me when I am off my doses of meds from the hospital and resume my normal medication of Lithium and Neomycin, maybe they can try switching me to a stronger steroid that effects my Crohns and stops my Vertigo from Meniere's. But my vertigo and other nasty side effects of Meniere's is well controlled on Neomycin the only effect I deal with now is sometimes my hearing cuts out and I need to wear my aids.
