medical

As a Geerling, when a situation goes upside-down I turn to humor. If you need evidence, go read The Joy of Crohn's. Back? Good.

Take today, for example. Day 3 stuck in a hospital due to complications from having Crohn's disease.

I'm in a bit of an awkward situation: I'm mostly fine, and I can walk around, do most things normally, talk, eat, etc. But I have this one little problem: My poop (due to having Crohn's disease) has gone thermonuclear, and it's now affecting my health.

Apparently I have this thing called CMV Colitis. It's one of a number of ailments that either exclusively affects immunocompromised patients (generally, people with IBD, Crohn's, Lupus, etc.), or makes said patients waaaay worse off than your average person. Like, nearly fatal instead of a low grade fever!

Anyways, picture an average week in a Crohnie's life:

Alternate title: How I survive 8 hours on a toilet, then enjoy the most relaxing 30 minute nap of my life

I still haven't decided if gastrointestinal doctors are genuinely caring, or sociopaths.

If you have Crohn's or some other form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), or if you're 50 or some multiple of ten beyond that, chances are you've had one or more colonoscopies. If you're even luckier, and have active and/or moderate-to-severe IBD, there's a good chance you've averaged at least one colonoscopy per year (my current record is two in a year!).

I'm prepping for my (by my count) 8th colonoscopy tonight, and while I still have the energy, I figured I might as well write something about the process, in the hope that I can make the process slightly better for you. There's something about sitting on a shiny white porcelain object that makes one wax eloquently about... human waste?

According to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, there are 1.6 million Americans with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease). While that means less than 1% of Americans have either Crohn's or Colitis, that's a pretty big number—and chances are you know someone with IBD, maybe even a close relative!

But due to the fact that Crohn's is usually an invisible illness, many people don't know some of the myriad joys of a typical Crohn's patient's life. This blog post aims to clear that up.

Phobias

Most people I know have one or more of the following phobias: