Apparently this is where I'm supposed to start.
I'm now approaching my the 2nd anniversary of my initial flare and diagnosis of UC.
It started in August of 2008. I had pneumonia, spent a week in the hospital and quit smoking.
October 2008 I finally moved out on my own, no room mates, moved into the city to be closer to work as opposed to staying in the suburbs. 2 weeks after I moved I started getting sick, I assumed it was food poisoning, from what I hear most people assume that's what it is. After a couple of weeks it didn't go away, and I saw some blood. I didn't have GP, so i went to the walk in clinic, they ordered some tests, and gave me antibiotics. I was still functioning, a bit run down. I head back into the clinic to see if the results were in, they weren't so they gave a referral to a GI.
I started to loose weight, and it went down hill fast. Still no word from the clinic or the GI they had sent my info to.
We're now 4 weeks into it. I'm going to the washroom every hour. I can't eat anything, I made a box of Stove Top Stuffing, it took me 3 days to finish. I can't sleep more than 45 minutes at a time. It's a Sunday night, after a week of not eating or sleeping, I promised my girlfriend that if I hadn't heard from the GI's office in 48hrs I would go back to a doctor.
The next day I tried to go to work, after about 30 minutes at the office in I find myself holding back my tie as I was throwing up the iced tea I drank. I talked to my boss and the director (who had complimented me on the weight loss the previous week), I took a cab home to try and nap before heading over to the hospital.
I spent 3 days in the ER on a morphine drip, antibiotics and saline. they eventually moved me a to a room, and put me on steroids.
The GI clinic I was referred to called me after I had been in the hospital for a week.
After 2 weeks they took me off the morphine. I had yet to respond to the steroids, I was still going to the washroom every 30 minutes. Then they started sending in surgeons to talk to me. After 2.5 weeks in the hospital and a few days before they were going to perform emergency surgery to remove my colon, things got better, in the span of two days I was suddenly only 8 times a day. They asked if I had recently quit smoking, I said yes. They danced around the question, until I point blank asked if me quitting smoking had any correlation to the UC, eventually they said yes, but that I shouldn't start smoking again, because the damage is done.
They released me after 3 weeks, I spent another week at my parent's recovering and spent a grand total of 2 moths off of work. It left me severely anemic, and 60 pounds lighter.
Things were going well, in the spring they tried to take me off of prednisone, that didn't go well. Then in the middle of the Summer they tried Imuran, after a couple of weeks I was back in the hospital with pancreatitis.
Then in May of this year I started getting weak, I went in for a routine follow up, and they took blood. The next day my doctor called and said I need to be admitted that day because I was in desperate need of a blood transfusion. While I was there they took a look around to find the source of the bleeding and they couldn't, it's just somewhere I was bleeding and they didn't know where. They upped my steroids and gave me a couple of transfusions
Then in June I was back in the hospital with blood clots, most likely because of the steroid increase.
So here we are at the end of July, I'm in a flare up that started 2 weeks ago, my diet has consisted of Ensure, Gatorade and instant noodles and I've dropped 15 pounds in that time, I'm a tubby guy so it doesn't affect me too much (the only positive thing to come out of this). My GI appointment is on Tuesday. And I'm a TB test away from starting Remicade (the test is also on Tuesday).
All because I quit smoking (one of the few things that I was really good at), I started up again, but it wasn't related to the UC, I just didn't feel nearly as cool as I once was.
I'm now approaching my the 2nd anniversary of my initial flare and diagnosis of UC.
It started in August of 2008. I had pneumonia, spent a week in the hospital and quit smoking.
October 2008 I finally moved out on my own, no room mates, moved into the city to be closer to work as opposed to staying in the suburbs. 2 weeks after I moved I started getting sick, I assumed it was food poisoning, from what I hear most people assume that's what it is. After a couple of weeks it didn't go away, and I saw some blood. I didn't have GP, so i went to the walk in clinic, they ordered some tests, and gave me antibiotics. I was still functioning, a bit run down. I head back into the clinic to see if the results were in, they weren't so they gave a referral to a GI.
I started to loose weight, and it went down hill fast. Still no word from the clinic or the GI they had sent my info to.
We're now 4 weeks into it. I'm going to the washroom every hour. I can't eat anything, I made a box of Stove Top Stuffing, it took me 3 days to finish. I can't sleep more than 45 minutes at a time. It's a Sunday night, after a week of not eating or sleeping, I promised my girlfriend that if I hadn't heard from the GI's office in 48hrs I would go back to a doctor.
The next day I tried to go to work, after about 30 minutes at the office in I find myself holding back my tie as I was throwing up the iced tea I drank. I talked to my boss and the director (who had complimented me on the weight loss the previous week), I took a cab home to try and nap before heading over to the hospital.
I spent 3 days in the ER on a morphine drip, antibiotics and saline. they eventually moved me a to a room, and put me on steroids.
The GI clinic I was referred to called me after I had been in the hospital for a week.
After 2 weeks they took me off the morphine. I had yet to respond to the steroids, I was still going to the washroom every 30 minutes. Then they started sending in surgeons to talk to me. After 2.5 weeks in the hospital and a few days before they were going to perform emergency surgery to remove my colon, things got better, in the span of two days I was suddenly only 8 times a day. They asked if I had recently quit smoking, I said yes. They danced around the question, until I point blank asked if me quitting smoking had any correlation to the UC, eventually they said yes, but that I shouldn't start smoking again, because the damage is done.
They released me after 3 weeks, I spent another week at my parent's recovering and spent a grand total of 2 moths off of work. It left me severely anemic, and 60 pounds lighter.
Things were going well, in the spring they tried to take me off of prednisone, that didn't go well. Then in the middle of the Summer they tried Imuran, after a couple of weeks I was back in the hospital with pancreatitis.
Then in May of this year I started getting weak, I went in for a routine follow up, and they took blood. The next day my doctor called and said I need to be admitted that day because I was in desperate need of a blood transfusion. While I was there they took a look around to find the source of the bleeding and they couldn't, it's just somewhere I was bleeding and they didn't know where. They upped my steroids and gave me a couple of transfusions
Then in June I was back in the hospital with blood clots, most likely because of the steroid increase.
So here we are at the end of July, I'm in a flare up that started 2 weeks ago, my diet has consisted of Ensure, Gatorade and instant noodles and I've dropped 15 pounds in that time, I'm a tubby guy so it doesn't affect me too much (the only positive thing to come out of this). My GI appointment is on Tuesday. And I'm a TB test away from starting Remicade (the test is also on Tuesday).
All because I quit smoking (one of the few things that I was really good at), I started up again, but it wasn't related to the UC, I just didn't feel nearly as cool as I once was.
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