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My long story so please bare with me

Hello, my story starts in December of 1959. Yes, 59 LOL. At age 6 mos I was near death when an emergency surgery was done to untie my tiny small intestine. At that young age they had to remove 22" of damaged small intestine.
From my earliest memories my BM's resembled that of a rabbit or a deer. Small pellets until my teen years, From 15 on I was having basically normal BM's almost daily. (childhood was mostly uneventful and I was a normal active scrappy child) In early adult life it looked like I would and did live a normal life.
Job, wife, child, etc.

Fast forward to July of 1997 and trouble strikes. Out of the blue I start to experience severe cramping and vomiting. First thought is just a virus or something. That is until I start vomiting fecal material. Now I fear my intestines are in a knot once again. In the ER I get dismissed by a PA who says to ease up on the drama cuz it's only the flu. Go home, take this, do that and you'll be fine. 48 hours later I'm back in the ER violently projectile vomiting fecal matter a good 20'! Surprise, surprise, I get the same PA. He says that to humor me and end the drama he's gonna have an x-ray done so I'll go home and he can treat the really sick patients! 2 hours later I'm in the OR having an emergency bowel resection done! Lost another 30"! Well, due to the 48 hours of lack of treatment I had to 1" holes in my large bowel and I was septic. 7.5 hhoours on the table and then 27 days in the hospital with only IV feeding. The only upside is that the hospital picked up the entire tab including 60 days of home nursing visits. (guess they were afraid of a lawsuit)

Well, I'm still alive but not without complications. I'd give anything to have a solid BM again! The last 16 years have been with chronic diarrhea. Good days are 2 to 3 movements a day. Bad days can be as much as 20 "fluid" movements a day. All the doctors say I've just got to live with it.

If any of y'all have any advice on getting some control back in my life I'd appreciate it greatly!

God Bless
TJ
 

dave13

Forum Monitor
Location
Maine
I can relate to the vomiting and Emergency surgery.I had a resection as well for blockage.You are on no meds? I was prescribed pentasa to help reduce future stricturing.I'm fairly new to crohn's but I would ask your PCP and GI about a plan to manage your crohn's.If they tell you to 'just live with it' I would switch doctors ASAP.
 
tjs you might want to speak with your GI about maintenance medicine to help manage your Crohn's keep us posted on what medicine they recommended and if you have questions don't hesitate to ask.
 
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