My story is really long, so bear with me please 
Well, I joined the army last year, and I graduated boot camp and went on to my job training (we call it advanced individual training or AIT). Not long after I started my studies in Virginia, I began having some strange bowel problems. At first I dismissed them as food poisoning or something. I never thought anything was ever seriously wrong with me. And I thought it would pass soon, and I didn't want to miss class, so I never went to sick call for it (which is the normal place to go for minor illness or injury). Pretty soon I'd look in the toilet and see blood, and even still I refused to go to sick call since I could get dropped from class if I missed just 2 days of schooling. Not long after that, I stopped eating solid foods altogether in an attempt to let my bowels heal, which didn't seem to work at all. I started losing weight at an alarming weight, it became hard to stand, I was as pale as a ghost, and everyone thought I was dying.
After a while I went to sick call, but all I wrote on my sick call slip was "diarrhea, stomach cramps." I never put anything about blood or anything like that, I was too embarrassed. So when I saw the doctor (which I don't even think the doctors there are actual doctors with degrees). But he took one look at my slip, asked me about nausea and a few other things and gave me some pills that were supposed to stop diarrhea (for the life of me, I can't remember the name of the drug). So I took the pills, and when I ran out my bloody stools were still there...
One day, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I went to my platoon sergeant and told him what was going on. He told me sick call was closed, so he could only send me to the hospital. In desperation, I did it. When I got there, I checked in and they weighed me and all of that fun stuff, and I got a room in the ER. First they did a wonderful rectal exam (which I had a beautiful female doctor perform). Luckily I wasn't too bothered by it. Then they wanted to do a CT scan, so they had me drink the barium crap that's supposed to be caramel flavored, but it's just disgusting. I got through the first bottle, and they wanted me to drink the majority of a second. After about half of the second bottle, I had to run to the bathroom, and I mean RUN. Trouble is, I didn't know where the bathroom was so I asked the nurse. She showed me where it was, and gave me a container and said the doctor wants a stool sample. And amazingly enough, while I was in the bathroom, I got really nauseous so I grabbed the trash can and heaved. Woohoo... I'm on the toilet with white stuff coming out my mouth and red stuff coming out the other end.
Anyway, when I got back to my little room, they told me I was ready for the CT scan. So they put me in a wheel chair (dont know why) and wheeled me over to the CT scan room, and they ran the big machine that I'm sure most of you have wonderful memories of. And they took me back to my room annd told me to wait while the doctor looked at the results. The doctor told me that I have colitis and told me that I need to follow up with a GI doctor on base. So the next day I went to sick call and explained to the man what happened and that I needed to see a GI doctor. He gave me the number to call to schedule an appointment with the one on base and he even tried calling the number then. He said there was no answer and said he would keep trying. For 2 weeks, we didn't get a hold of the doctor.
Then finally, we got someone. We scheduled the appointment for the next week. (Keep in mind that I was bleeding for a few weeks before I went to the ER, and it's been another 2 weeks since then, and now I'm going to have to wait another week to be seen by the GI) And the day finally came, so I went to the on-post medical facility and walked in to the GI clinic. As soon as the nurse looked at me, she said "You need to go lay down." And she showed me where a bed was and told me that she was going to get the doctor. My doctor (who I would later come to love) was with another patient at the time, and she insisted that he come look at me. He walked in and said "I'm glad you came to get me. He needs to go to the ER, now." So they called an ambulance, put an IV lock in. Soon the paramedics got there, and hooked up fluids to my IV lock, put me on the gurny and wheeled me to the ambulance. I ended up right back in the same ER as before...
And awesomely enough, they wanted pretty much everything they did last time. This time at least, I had friends there with me. The doctors told me that they don't really know what's exactly wrong with me, so they moved me upstairs. My TV didn't work in that room, and my friends left after a while, since I was in a room and officially checked in to the hospital, so they gave my room number to my command and left since their only purpose was to make sure I got there ok. So I was left there, IVs in both arms, a heart monitor hooked up to my chest, and I didn't have anything to do. Since I left on such short notice, I didn't have the opportunity to get changes of clothes, or any of my personal items to entertain myself with. And once I got up to go to the bathroom, and before I could get there, I had a little accident... I was stunned. I didn't move for like 30 seconds. Finally I hit the nurse call button and told them I had an accident. So they came in and helped me clean up, and I asked if they had anything I could wear or if they could wash my clothes. So they brought me some pants that reminded me of PJs, but with no button on the front and only a draw string to keep them up, no elastic. Which was awesome, if the front opened, everyone would get a little show and the pants didn't stay up very well, so I had to hold them while I walked.
But they told me that they wanted to do a short scope, and so I had to use an enema to clean my colon up so they could do the procedure. Little did I know that enemas are very unpleasant to say the least. And so they wheeled me over to do the procedure, and I fell asleep in the waiting room, since I was still in my bed. And so they took me back into the procedure room, and I was under the impression that I'd be put to sleep, boy was I wrong. Not only was I awake while they violated me with a camera, but I saw the whole thing on the screen in front of me. It fascinated me and at the same time I felt like I was being raped by a 40 year-old doctor with a foreign object. They also said the biopsies they took wouldn't hurt, they lied. Once they were done, they wheeled me into the recovery room for a little bit, then back to my room. Luckily the TV was fixed. And the doctor came in and told me the bad news. He said I have ulcerative colitis and began to explain it to me. I was shocked and excited, excited because I finally knew what was wrong with me, and shocked for obvious reasons.
Now, I was under the impression that all the medications he was going to put me on was going to cure this new mysterious disease. So I was very optimistic. And so they moved me to a different room, where I didn't need the heart monitor. They told me that I should get released by monday (I went in on a Thursday, got diagnosed, and put on meds friday) So I was happy, soon I'd be out of the hospital and cured and I would go back to my studies like nothing ever happened. But I got a rude awakening. A different doctor came in and explained UC to me a little better, she told me that I was going to have it the rest of my life and it was NOT curable. My emotions went CRAZY, every time I was alone I broke down and cried. Luckily I got to use my phone card to call my family (I would've used my phone, but it died and my charger was back at the barracks like everything else). And for the next few days it was all eat, sleep, take pills, talk to doctors, and of course sit on the toilet. And there was a little cartoons involved in that.
Monday came around and they wouldn't let me leave because my potassium levels were low, so they put it in my IV, which burned like crazy so I told the nurse to stop it, so they went to the pill version. And told me maybe tomorrow I can go home (or really back to the barracks). It seemed like everyday something like this came up, preventing me from leaving. I wondered if I'd ever get out of the hospital. My doctor decided to put me on Imuran like at midnight the night before I was finally going to get out, and so they had to monitor me for bad side effects, which prolonged my stay... again. So all in all they had me on 13 different drugs, and who knows how many pills I was taking a day, which included asacol, imuran, and prednisone.
One day I looked in the mirror and decided that I looked like a skeleton... I normally weigh 155 lbs, now I was just over 130 lbs, and I'm almost 6", I'm skinny to begin with. Now I was sickly skinny. My face sunk in, my neck looked like a toothpick, all of my muscle was gone, I couldn't believe it. I went from a good looking soldier to an anorexic looking person...
I got to spend Halloween in the hospital, which wasn't very fun. Especially since it was the 1-year mark since my girlfriend and I got together, and I hadn't seen her in months. One of my nurses noticed I was lonely and heartbroken, so she went out and got me Oreos and some word searches, she was my angel at the time. She saved me from boredom and my own mind. She even sat down and talked to me after her shift was over.
Well, I joined the army last year, and I graduated boot camp and went on to my job training (we call it advanced individual training or AIT). Not long after I started my studies in Virginia, I began having some strange bowel problems. At first I dismissed them as food poisoning or something. I never thought anything was ever seriously wrong with me. And I thought it would pass soon, and I didn't want to miss class, so I never went to sick call for it (which is the normal place to go for minor illness or injury). Pretty soon I'd look in the toilet and see blood, and even still I refused to go to sick call since I could get dropped from class if I missed just 2 days of schooling. Not long after that, I stopped eating solid foods altogether in an attempt to let my bowels heal, which didn't seem to work at all. I started losing weight at an alarming weight, it became hard to stand, I was as pale as a ghost, and everyone thought I was dying.
After a while I went to sick call, but all I wrote on my sick call slip was "diarrhea, stomach cramps." I never put anything about blood or anything like that, I was too embarrassed. So when I saw the doctor (which I don't even think the doctors there are actual doctors with degrees). But he took one look at my slip, asked me about nausea and a few other things and gave me some pills that were supposed to stop diarrhea (for the life of me, I can't remember the name of the drug). So I took the pills, and when I ran out my bloody stools were still there...
One day, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I went to my platoon sergeant and told him what was going on. He told me sick call was closed, so he could only send me to the hospital. In desperation, I did it. When I got there, I checked in and they weighed me and all of that fun stuff, and I got a room in the ER. First they did a wonderful rectal exam (which I had a beautiful female doctor perform). Luckily I wasn't too bothered by it. Then they wanted to do a CT scan, so they had me drink the barium crap that's supposed to be caramel flavored, but it's just disgusting. I got through the first bottle, and they wanted me to drink the majority of a second. After about half of the second bottle, I had to run to the bathroom, and I mean RUN. Trouble is, I didn't know where the bathroom was so I asked the nurse. She showed me where it was, and gave me a container and said the doctor wants a stool sample. And amazingly enough, while I was in the bathroom, I got really nauseous so I grabbed the trash can and heaved. Woohoo... I'm on the toilet with white stuff coming out my mouth and red stuff coming out the other end.
Anyway, when I got back to my little room, they told me I was ready for the CT scan. So they put me in a wheel chair (dont know why) and wheeled me over to the CT scan room, and they ran the big machine that I'm sure most of you have wonderful memories of. And they took me back to my room annd told me to wait while the doctor looked at the results. The doctor told me that I have colitis and told me that I need to follow up with a GI doctor on base. So the next day I went to sick call and explained to the man what happened and that I needed to see a GI doctor. He gave me the number to call to schedule an appointment with the one on base and he even tried calling the number then. He said there was no answer and said he would keep trying. For 2 weeks, we didn't get a hold of the doctor.
Then finally, we got someone. We scheduled the appointment for the next week. (Keep in mind that I was bleeding for a few weeks before I went to the ER, and it's been another 2 weeks since then, and now I'm going to have to wait another week to be seen by the GI) And the day finally came, so I went to the on-post medical facility and walked in to the GI clinic. As soon as the nurse looked at me, she said "You need to go lay down." And she showed me where a bed was and told me that she was going to get the doctor. My doctor (who I would later come to love) was with another patient at the time, and she insisted that he come look at me. He walked in and said "I'm glad you came to get me. He needs to go to the ER, now." So they called an ambulance, put an IV lock in. Soon the paramedics got there, and hooked up fluids to my IV lock, put me on the gurny and wheeled me to the ambulance. I ended up right back in the same ER as before...
And awesomely enough, they wanted pretty much everything they did last time. This time at least, I had friends there with me. The doctors told me that they don't really know what's exactly wrong with me, so they moved me upstairs. My TV didn't work in that room, and my friends left after a while, since I was in a room and officially checked in to the hospital, so they gave my room number to my command and left since their only purpose was to make sure I got there ok. So I was left there, IVs in both arms, a heart monitor hooked up to my chest, and I didn't have anything to do. Since I left on such short notice, I didn't have the opportunity to get changes of clothes, or any of my personal items to entertain myself with. And once I got up to go to the bathroom, and before I could get there, I had a little accident... I was stunned. I didn't move for like 30 seconds. Finally I hit the nurse call button and told them I had an accident. So they came in and helped me clean up, and I asked if they had anything I could wear or if they could wash my clothes. So they brought me some pants that reminded me of PJs, but with no button on the front and only a draw string to keep them up, no elastic. Which was awesome, if the front opened, everyone would get a little show and the pants didn't stay up very well, so I had to hold them while I walked.
But they told me that they wanted to do a short scope, and so I had to use an enema to clean my colon up so they could do the procedure. Little did I know that enemas are very unpleasant to say the least. And so they wheeled me over to do the procedure, and I fell asleep in the waiting room, since I was still in my bed. And so they took me back into the procedure room, and I was under the impression that I'd be put to sleep, boy was I wrong. Not only was I awake while they violated me with a camera, but I saw the whole thing on the screen in front of me. It fascinated me and at the same time I felt like I was being raped by a 40 year-old doctor with a foreign object. They also said the biopsies they took wouldn't hurt, they lied. Once they were done, they wheeled me into the recovery room for a little bit, then back to my room. Luckily the TV was fixed. And the doctor came in and told me the bad news. He said I have ulcerative colitis and began to explain it to me. I was shocked and excited, excited because I finally knew what was wrong with me, and shocked for obvious reasons.
Now, I was under the impression that all the medications he was going to put me on was going to cure this new mysterious disease. So I was very optimistic. And so they moved me to a different room, where I didn't need the heart monitor. They told me that I should get released by monday (I went in on a Thursday, got diagnosed, and put on meds friday) So I was happy, soon I'd be out of the hospital and cured and I would go back to my studies like nothing ever happened. But I got a rude awakening. A different doctor came in and explained UC to me a little better, she told me that I was going to have it the rest of my life and it was NOT curable. My emotions went CRAZY, every time I was alone I broke down and cried. Luckily I got to use my phone card to call my family (I would've used my phone, but it died and my charger was back at the barracks like everything else). And for the next few days it was all eat, sleep, take pills, talk to doctors, and of course sit on the toilet. And there was a little cartoons involved in that.
Monday came around and they wouldn't let me leave because my potassium levels were low, so they put it in my IV, which burned like crazy so I told the nurse to stop it, so they went to the pill version. And told me maybe tomorrow I can go home (or really back to the barracks). It seemed like everyday something like this came up, preventing me from leaving. I wondered if I'd ever get out of the hospital. My doctor decided to put me on Imuran like at midnight the night before I was finally going to get out, and so they had to monitor me for bad side effects, which prolonged my stay... again. So all in all they had me on 13 different drugs, and who knows how many pills I was taking a day, which included asacol, imuran, and prednisone.
One day I looked in the mirror and decided that I looked like a skeleton... I normally weigh 155 lbs, now I was just over 130 lbs, and I'm almost 6", I'm skinny to begin with. Now I was sickly skinny. My face sunk in, my neck looked like a toothpick, all of my muscle was gone, I couldn't believe it. I went from a good looking soldier to an anorexic looking person...
I got to spend Halloween in the hospital, which wasn't very fun. Especially since it was the 1-year mark since my girlfriend and I got together, and I hadn't seen her in months. One of my nurses noticed I was lonely and heartbroken, so she went out and got me Oreos and some word searches, she was my angel at the time. She saved me from boredom and my own mind. She even sat down and talked to me after her shift was over.
