My Story About The Battle For my Life

I'm going to talk about how I got diagnosed with Crohn's disease and 'spoiler alert!', how I ended up getting my ostomy surgery. I just want to preface that I won't sugarcoat any words here if you're not comfortable with me talking about poop and blood and those kind of things then this is not blog for you.

So this all started in grade 10, I really wasn't feeling good. My stomach was hurting, I was going to the bathroom a lot more. If you think about it, for someone in high school, in grade 10 this is not something you want to talk to your parents about. I remember finally mentioning it to my mom and we went to my family doctor and he thought maybe I should go see a gastroenterologist also known as like a GI. We went and saw a GI and he put me through the ringer! Let me tell you, it took me a few months to get into him, it was about like six months or something long to get into him. Once I got in to see him he just did the basics; Cut out gluten, cut out milk, cut out anything that would really trigger your belly or that you'd be sensitive to. I actually did a lactose intolerance test and I did a celiac test for a gluten allergy.

After a bit we are now getting into grade 11 grade 12. I'm starting to go to the hospital because it's so bad. The pain is so bad and my gastroenterologist kept thinking like 'I don't know what it is maybe it's IBS which is also known as irritable bowel syndrome; This is different from Crohn's Disease, Crohn's is irritable bowel disease.

So my GI thought it was IBS and was just treating it as such. Things like dietary, different types of medications, mobility meds, and digestive meds. Nothing was working! I remember my mom saying to me who gets the flu twice.

It's weird how there's certain memories are clear as day and other memories are a complete blur. I essentially have heard most stories from my parents as to what had happened. My mom said 'well if you think you need to go to the hospital go but like just maybe don't go to school'. Here I was, still in high school and I just felt bad not going to school. I loved school, yes I was a nerd, I loved school. I just more importantly loved band class I didn't want to miss band class. Honestly band is what kept me going, music is what kept me going! It really broke my heart not being able to go to band class.

I ended up going to the hospital a couple times before the big one and each time I would go to the local hospital in my city that I live in. They would say 'it's just the flu you can go home you have to talk to your gastroenterologist tell your GI this and he'll help you'. I wouldn't even stay there for a couple hours like it would just be a few hours or more eight hours but I'd still be in emergency in a chair crying in pain. This was just total debilitation!

There's one night where we went back to this hospital again so they said we'll refer you to our specialist here at this hospital. This guy wasn't my specialist, he's at a different hospital and this specialist came and talked to me and he said 'are you bleeding as in bleeding rectally?' and I said 'yeah I've been bleeding this whole time' and he's like 'I don't know why your GI isn't doing anything about it because if you are bleeding you should have a colonoscopy to see if you have IBD, if you're bleeding you most likely have IBD'.

We then went back to my specialist and told him the stuff that I omitted, being the most important information. I was a young girl, I was embarrassed to tell him that I was bleeding and that was the most important information! My GI then booked me in for a scope and I had to wait six months.

I'm in grade 12 and grade 12 for me was in 2012. So about two years after I started having some problems. One time I was so sick again and we didn't want to go back to the hospital that's in my town I was 17 when we were going and my mom said 'let's just take you to the children's hospital'. We have a hospital about an hour to hour and a half with traffic away and it's the designated children's hospital. We went there thinking that I am a child, still in high school, not even legal age to vote, we went there thinking that they would help us. We walked in and they said 'how old are you?' and I said '17' and they said 'sorry we can't help you because you're too old' and so we asked how old you had to be and they said '16!'. I was 1 year off and they didn't make any exceptions.

They couldn't help us so we drove all the way back to my hometown and we stopped at the hospital there because I was just so sick, throwing up constantly, so much pain, and going to the bathroom, bleeding, IT WAS A LOT! I still haven't had my scope yet. The hospital looked at us and said 'why are you here it's like 11 it was one o'clock at night?' I think actually we said 'well we just drove all the way down to the children's hospital and they said we're too old so we drove all the way back here' and they said 'okay'.

I think the hospital humorous because they put me in the child's ward at this hospital which I've never been in before but they saw me and kept me for the night. This time they gave me some fluids, Tylenol and then just sent me back home. I wasn't even admitted and still so sick. My mom said 'well let's go to your family doctor and see what he thinks'. We went in and I just laid on his bed and said 'mom I just need to lay down'. I was laying there and the my family doctor walked in and went 'oh God' and my mom looked at him and just said 'please help'. Right away we told him what happened and the experiences we had he then said 'you know what, go to THIS hospital', which was the hospital that my GI is at but different from any of the ones that we've been, to and he said 'I'm not supposed to do this but I'm going to write a letter and you can give it to the hospital'. I think we read the letter after the fact and it just basically said my name and what's been going on and who my doctor was and those kind of things

Simply put this hospital, which was different from the previous ones, was one that I was within age! LOL everybody can go to this hospital. It was also a teaching hospital so I think that played a role into how they were able to help me. I dragged my butt into the emergency department, go in and one of the doctors comes up to us and says 'the only way to get your colonoscopy sooner would be to admit you. We can try and squeeze you in any time as soon as you're admitted'. I got admitted got put on to the most disgusting word of my life! However, three days later I got diagnosed! We did my scope she said 'this is clear as day Crohn's, but unfortunately you have severe Crohn's disease we need to treat this immediately!' So they started to treat me, we didn't even talk about if it wasn't going to work.

I had no idea what was going on, I didn't care. I wanted my colon out, I wanted to die, I wanted an intestinal transplant, full body transplant anything to put me in another body I thought would be great! 12 hours after starting treatment I perked up! I don't know what I was doing I felt better and my GI walked into the room and 'oh! she looks good' and you could just tell my mom had this sigh of relief in the room. This was all good news! So my GI saved my life that night.

I was in that hospital for 29 days total. I went through my commencement ceremony in the hospital. I got a pass and went to my grade 12 commencement. I wrote my grade 12 English exam with one of my teachers beside me to supervise. It was funny because I was doing this exam trying to pass for University but also had a LOT of pain meds in my system.

I've accepted with Crohn's disease being that it is an autoimmune disease, is that it affects my body as a whole! Anything and everything can happen what from my mouth to my butthole, from my head to my toes. Everything and anything.

I'm going to leave this story Here and share some more next time.