Wednesday, November 4, 2009

The power of expired milk

I seem to be writing an awful lot about obstructions these days and unfortunately, today's journal is not different.

On Sunday night I felt the familiar rumblings and cramping's of an obstruction. With no sick leave left to speak of and Tuesday being a public Holiday here, death was the only excuse for not showing up to work yesterday. I decided to head off to bed early and take a couple of these "Digesic" tablets that my GI assured me would be better than Oxycontin.

Clearly, he's never had strong pain, because they were useless.

I spent the night in and out of cramping agony, dozing in and out of sleep and crawled out of bed in the morning with a lovely set of bags under my bloodshot eyes, a swollen belly and pounding headache. If I didn't know better I'd suspect I'd had a big night on the grog!

Unable to pass anything, not for lack of trying and still in a decent amount of pain. I managed to make it into the office. The cramps continued through the first two morning meetings and then, aware that I had a good hour before my next appointment, I decided to make a coffee. I went into the kitchen, thought nothing of the milk on the counter, made a coffee, poured in the milk gave it a stir and went back to my desk. Half-way through my coffee I came to the awful realisation that the milk was well and truly off.

There is no smiley face that adequately depicts the emotion I felt.

It didn't take long before I started feeling really nauseous. Half an hour later, the gurgling and churning in my stomach was so loud that the woman who sits next to me commented. There was the most intense cramping agonyfollowed by more churning.

By this time I'd already hightailed it to the toilet

and then suddenly, with an almighty burst of pain, the floodgates opened and the obstruction cleared. I'm sure it was the pressure of my insides reacting to the off milk that caused things to shift.

Who would have thought that rotten milk would lead to tears of JOY!

My stomach's still a little sore and swollen and the whole system is being a temperamental pain in the a.. lol but it's bearable. On Monday I have a colonoscopy and an examination under anesthetic and on Wednesday I have my Remicade transfusion.

Yeah, you WISH you were as lucky as me.

I'm tired and cranky and really really angry at my doctors. Why is it that I have to beg and plead for painkillers to manage my actual pain, and get prescribed the most useless crap, while people who use them for recreation seem to be able to get them easily. I'm so sick of this. It isn't fair. I'm not a drug addict. I don't use them to get high. I use them to get through the agony that comes with Crohn's. Do I have to present at the Emergency Department every time I get an obstruction because if that's the case I may as well quit my job and move in there.

Bastards, they make a difficult situation worse. They wouldn't last one day with this illness, but they expect me to do it without help.
It just isn't fair.

Ok. Rant over. (well for now anyway)

Photobucket

8 comments:

  1. I also have crohn's and I totally know how you feel. While having a crohn's flareup it is the most intense pain ever. I have experienced child birth so Yes crohn's is the worst pain. When having a flareup the doctors act like we are addicted to pain meds. I had a family doctor go as far as prescribe me antidepressants because I was depressed not experience real pain. OMG! I was so frustrated and sure enough a week later I layed in the hospital with a tube trying to pump out the bile waitin on the obstruction to open. I didn't mean to rant on ur comments but thanks for the post. I totally feel where u are coming from.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i am so, so sorry for the milk incident... it seems to make the pain worse being able to associate it that directly with a cause :(

    we seem to be on the same page with the medical world this week; hopefully your colonoscopy will reveal something targetable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so sorry to hear of your painful experience. But here's another tip: diuretics like coffee (caffeine) cause dehydration which is bad for blockages. You might try lots of water and a stool softener next time. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. By the way, your website keeps asking for a twitter login.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lori - Feel free to rant as much as you like, if it helps, go for it! I don't understand why it's so hard for these doctors to accept that our pain is genuine. It's a well documented aspect of Crohn's. We really aren't making it up.

    Ragamuffin - I'm actually dreading these procedures on monday. I don't know why, I've a million of them. Hopefully they'll be painless and of some help.

    Anonymous - I know that coffee can be bad, but honestly for me, it makes no difference other than give me a bit of "get up and go" in the mid morning. Stool softeners won't help as I have diarrhea 95% of the time anyway and some very tight strictures which are going to need stretching or removal.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think I've fixed the Twitter thing. Sorry about that.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm lurker, now a poster, so if I am intruding forgive me. I drink organic vanilla soy milk and finally its working. I chug that stuff like crazy and can finally eat cereal and milk. I HATE that all the new cereals have fiber. Like suddenly, fiber- the devil of Crohns- is everywhere.

    Anyway, I noticed you saying you're on remicaid. I was on it off and on for 5 years. If you have any questions about side effects or want to talk about anything, please hit me up. I've never really talked to anyone close to my own age taking it for Crohns. Honestly, I've never spoken to anyone taking it for Crohns. Everyone in the chemo lab, where they banished us and gave us unlimited juice, everyone taking it had RA. I will say this though- be very careful with your hair. Baby it, moisturize it, never ever skip conditioner. For some reason, my hair was a fried frizz ball when I took remicaid. I'm on humira now and its like where did all the frizz go, so I have to get all new hair stuff. Oh and dude, Cottonelle wipes are your friend for diarrhea. Beautiful thing:)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lindsey - you're not intruding. I welcome everyone's comments. Thanks for posting :-) I hate that fiber is everywhere too. I grabbed a packet of jelly last week and it said "High in fiber" on the pack. You've got to be kidding? Are people that hard up for fiber they need to put it in Jelly now.
    So far so good with Remicade. No noticable side effects, except for headaches if I don't keep my fluids up.
    As for the hair, I have the same problem. I throw bucket loads of conditioner and hot oil and moisteriser on it lol

    ReplyDelete