nurse

Being in the hospital with Crohn’s disease is miserable.

But before I get too negative, I have to confirm one major benefit to having an ostomy and being hospitalized: it’s a lot easier to give stool samples now. I don’t even need a toilet!

Anyways, while a lot of us who have chronic diseases often laugh it off or put on a happy face, and post to our social media accounts, it’s a slog. It’s not fun. You think long and hard and try anything and everything to avoid a hospitalization—and sometimes the stress you get from that makes the situation even worse!

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: