Small Bowel Stricture

Well I’ve been mentioning on here about having the stomach pain.  The other night, I had such bad pain I thought either a heart attack or my appendix was going to burst.

The next day I was so exhausted I slept for 12 hours!  I even slept that night again, but kept waking up to sharp pains in my stomach. 

Yesterday, my social service worker who is also a nurse came by to check on me.  We share the same family doctor, so she stopped by to make me an appointment.  Kathy, the secretary, also has Crohn’s Disease.  She suggested I better go to the hospital. 

So my Grams took me in, and a G I Surgen came down from Kingston to see me.  He is pretty sure I have a small bowel stricture.  I got booked right then to see the G I team in Belleville to get a small bowel x-ray done.  You drink this gross stuff that makes me throw up, and then you get x-ray pictures of it going into the small intestine to watch for a blockage.  If this is for sure what it is, then I have to go in for surgery to get it fixed.

He told me to pick up, Ovol, a baby gas pain reliever that you take in drops.  It is not helping with the pain at all.  I’ve tried, but haven’t been able to eat in a few days, can’t even stomach coffee.  Only water.  I can’t move around and do much bc I end up on the floor in pain almost throwing up.  I just have to deal with it until I find out for sure this is what’s happening, then wait for the surgery.  I’m in so much pain, I feel like another day of this is impossible.

Anyway, I won’t be around until this is fixed bc I just can’t handle not being on the couch. 

Ash,

I Finally Know Yeah!

I now know for sure when I am moving! WOOHOO!  hehe.  I move this coming Friday!  I’m so excited to get into my nice, new, HEALTHY, apartment

Tomorrow is Family Day in Canada… what’s funny is very few Canadians even remember it let a lone celebrate.  Apparently it’s only a couple years old though.  Any Canadians out there celebrate this?  I don’t think we have…  This year for good old Family Day, my mom, sis, and grams are coming over and we’re moving a bunch of the boxes, and bags of bedding, clothing, etc. over to the apartment.  It will be nice to have stuff that can be put away and set up done, so I don’t have to worry about it after the move.

I made my little list of stuff to get help getting from disability.  I don’t know if it will be accepted, but I sure hope so!  I asked for a bar stool I found, with a back rest, so I can get my legs up, to use for doing dishes in the kitchen, a coat stand bc the only closet is off the bedroom, a couch I found at the Brick, and a reg. light vacuum that comes apart into a hand vacuum to use for furniture, and sucking up gross spiders… the bastards! lol, and a book shelf for in the living room.  I have a big one already, but it doesn’t hold all my stuff between my books and movies!  There’s not a LOT of storage space like I’ve been spoiled to have here, so the less I have to pack away into the one closet, the better!

The dentist went good!  The girl dentist, who normally works at their other office is sooo quicker than my normal dentist!  I really like her personality too!  She tried filling some of my cavities without freezing… and OMG lol it was painful!!!  She ended up having to freeze two for me and the rest I pushed myself through the pain.  With the epinephrine and me being in pain, it shot my adrenalin through the roof!  I felt fine, but I was mad shakey and really dizzy at first.  My mouth was swollen and pained, but nothing too bad!  I could still eat and drink fine afterward.  She agreed with me, when I go back to get the rest done (yes I still have more to go eek! lol damn heart issues) she’s definitely just going to freeze me up like crazy bc that’s better than putting me through that again.

Today I’ve been just working around the apartment packing more stuff, and now am out of boxes when I could be packing more!  I think what I’ll do, is after tomorrow bring the boxes back with me here and just repack what I have left in some of those.  It will be easier to recycle them here anyway bc we don’t have bins and stuff at the new place.

Not much else has been happening bc I’ve been in so much pain.  Ever since I was upped on the Bisoprolol, it feels like my body is trying to cave in on itself.  I think maybe it has affected my Fibromyalgia and the nerve damage in my Crohn’s bc my stomach isn’t being affected except that I’m getting horrible stomach pain like when I first got sick without all the other gross issues lol.  I call it my Freddy Kruger fingers stomach pain lol.  The crazy chest pain I was having is a lot better though.  Even when you know it’s POTS, it’s still scary to have it none the less, and it was lasting for almost 2 weeks!  Freaked me out, but now it’s just little bits of pain every once in a while not none stop

Tuesday, I go in to see the Neurologist.  I’m excited, but not wanting to be too hopeful.  I hear he usually only does studies on potsy’s at MacMaster Uni. so I don’t know if he will do much if anything for me, while I have a Cardiologist.  I’m hoping if anything, he will do more autonomic testing on me… but not too sure.  Will be interesting to see though what all he knows!

Alright, will write soon, but maybe not right away after the appointment with the move coming up.  Will see what kind of time I have in between, otherwise, will write from my new place

Later Gaters!

Ash,

Burning Tummy

Went to visit my Gramps yesterday at the nursing home w my mom, sis and Nick.  He actually didn’t look as bad as I expected.  He basically looks the same just really pale.  He even knew who we all were which is a first in I don’t know how long!  Made the visit nice

For the last week or so my stomach has been off.  When you have Crohn’s Disease, you know all about switching your food to deal with how you’re currently feeling.  Every once in a while I go through periods where I get really bad heart burn or stomach burn.  I’ve never asked my doctors for anything for it, bc that’s the least of my worries with my illnesses, but it’s gotten so bad in the past I’ve thrown up from it.

As the days have gone by this past week, I’ve taken away the fiber that must be irritating it, and eating softer foods, but my guts are on a rampage with me for some reason.  The other night, the pain in my stomach was so bad I almost called my mom to come take me to the ER even though they wouldn’t do anything for it, so I just rode it out.

All day yesterday, I noticed almost indigestion upset in my tummy where it just didn’t feel good, and then by night time I had a dull constant ache in my stomach.  That’s nothing to deal with.  Then every night from POTS I get mad hot spells and nausea so I tried to stay up bc I know I can’t sleep through them, but it never went away.  All night I woke up constantly to the point where I wasn’t sure if I had even slept and the burning in my stomach rose.  Zeus got in bed about an hour ago which must have woke me up bc the fire in my mouth was so bad I swore I was going to throw up.  So before any water I had a tums which dulled it to the ache in my stomach again, but now my mouth feels on fire again an hour later.  And my stomach is feeling very upset and in pain.

For the next week or so I should use my bed wedge again to prop myself up to help.  I don’t know what else I can do.  Crohn’s is a bitch when it wants, and you just have to hold on until it’s over… hopefully soon! lol.

As for an update on the POTS situation with going off Symbicort and seeing if that helps the Bisoprolol… I cough constantly lol.  My heart rate is lower… kinda but not really, and otherwise I don’t feel any different.  But I think I might be coming down w a cold, so it’s hard to say yet.

Going to dad’s this weekend for Thanksgiving and my aunt Kelly is coming down too.  It’ll be fun

Ash,

It’s Almost Fall!!!

I’m so happy August has gone by so quickly!!!!  Cold weather is coming soon!

Well, I was planning on going to go to physical therapy on Thursday.  I felt achy Tuesday night, but by Wednesday evening I was starting to feel better and not so sick to my stomach… and then I went to bed lol.

He has a thing for bags and purses lol

Every time I lay down my stomach starts rolling and I get really bad nausea.  Then I’m wide awake and can’t sleep.  I get up and eat something, and feel better, but my joints hurt so badly I need to just lay my head down… and the nausea starts again lol.  Even my damn toes hurt!  Weird… my arm muscle hurt even though I worked out my legs, but that pain was gone almost right away.   Since the first day or so it’s been in my wrists, fingers, ankles, toes, stomach, head, neck (pulled a muscle sleeping).  I haven’t been able to leave the house except to go to my mom’s and lay on her couch lol.

I called my Cardiologist and he wants me to get in there right away since each day it just keeps getting worst, so I am going in at 8:45am on Monday!  I couldn’t believe I got in that fast!  Awesome   I’m going to call the physical therapist too and just ask her what I can do from home, bc I’m not putting myself through this crap again next week.  I really like being able to work out at a gym again too, but oh well

When I was at the last physical therapy class, they gave us a bunch of papers to take home, and I was looking over them a few days ago and noticed my cholesterol was high… so when my counselor was over visiting yesterday, (she is a nurse as well) I had her look at the numbers to get her opinion.  She told me to call my family doctor asap and get in there and show it to her.  Kind of worried me to be honest, bc some of the numbers were double what they consider normal, and none of the doctors had mentioned it to me.  I know my heart is healthy, but of course I want to keep it that way!  So I called, but I can’t get in until Sept. 14th, which is fine, I’ll just bring the paperwork with me to the Cardiologist on Monday.

I went on Kim’s Hyper POTS group (website in the side bar) but only a couple people responded, so I don’t know if it’s POTS related or not.  I could see it.  My dad has been a big help, since he has high cholesterol too, and made me feel a bit more calm about it.  I wonder if it’s hereditary?  Anyone know?

I was hoping to be able to fix it through diet, since I’m having a horrible time with exercising, but I don’t really eat anything with high cholesterol except cheese.  I am going to try to find the lighter fatty versions of the odd things I do eat, and stick to eating whole grains instead of white breads and rice, and switch from 1% milk to skim… I only drink it in my coffee though, but whatever lol.  Any little thing will help   My dad got put on Lipitor (sp?) and now he can’t go off it!  Don’t know if that’s what it’s like with all cholesterol medicines, Lipitor itself, or just his case in general.  But when he changed his diet, and kept up with the exercise, he wanted to go off it to see if he could manage it himself, and his doctors said no, he’d never be able to.   I always like my options!

So next Tues.  if I don’t go to the dietitian through the physical therapy unit, I will be going grocery shopping (so long as this sickening feeling goes away) and Zeus and I are changing our diets lol.  You must have noticed how unusually fat he is… lmao.  He’s happy, and doesn’t eat a lot, but could probably eat less and move around more.  He has to be on the food he is on due to him being vulnerable to getting crystals (almost killed him once) but obviously him being SO overweight is good either.  I think he’s gained more since me moving out from mom’s, bc he doesn’t have her kittens to play with, and his brother Bizkit passed away, so it’s just him… which he actually seems happier for bc he hates not being the dominant cat, but he’s gotten lazier.  So I’m going to get him a measuring cup for his food, and start using his laser toy with him more to get him moving.

When I go to the doctors (my GP) I’m going to ask her, and the cardiologist about something for my nausea too.  I can deal with the pain… it sucks, but I’ve been told taking pain medicine can make your POTS symptoms worse, so I’ll handle that lol, but this nausea has got to be my worst symptom, bc it knocks me right down to not being able to do much of anything.

Anyway, not much else is new.  Just been home and pukey feeling lol.  Just been a little worried about my over all health and how all of this is going to effect my in the near future.  I am willing to do all I can to get better, but it’s frustrating when doctors quite understand why it’s happening.  Hope you are all doing well and I will write more after my appointment with my Cardiologist on Monday.

Ash,