- Location
- oregon
So here is a little back ground. My middle name is Bryana, and that is my preferred name. I will be 17 in April. I am egnostic, my favorite color is red and as of now I really LOVE food. Especially anything with red meat and cheddar cheese. It has been difficult for me to do much lately. Today was the first day in about a week that I attempted to go to school, I knew I couldn't after my first class was over....
September, 2013.
I was fine, I was going to school regularly. I thought this school year would be as successful as any other year if not better. I was working out regularly, I was eating well. My friends seemed comfortable in my presence, I felt like I belonged at school because I was present, normally.
By the second week of October, I got sick. I thought it was just the flu, I stayed home on Friday, in hopes of fighting it off. I returned to school for the following week. I got sick again. I stayed home for a week. I wasn't able to go back to school for the rest of that semester. My mother set up an appointment with our primary doctor as soon as she knew this was bigger than the flu. Before that first appointment, I stepped onto the scale as the nurse took my weight and measurements. "124 lb" appeared on the scale. I had lost 6 pounds, and all I was doing was laying around in bed, eating dairy queen, Pizza Hut, etcetera. I explained to the doctor that I was loosing hair, that I had terrible stomach pains, diarrhea, fever. She took a blood test, one week later we had a follow up and she said, "you are just severely anemic" I was relieved. She prescribed me an OTC antacid, and I ate iron rich foods to fix the anemia. But my symptoms weren't gone. We went back a few weeks later, she agreed to do x-ray and ultrasound testing. They found nothing with the ultra sound. The only thing they found in the x ray was terrible constipation. She didn't do any thing else after that. She continued to insist I was just backed up. She told me to take gas-x and laxatives. We tried it, but it didn't work. She said she could refer us to a GI specialist and allow a CT scan at after we persisted that we knew something was wrong.
The CT scan found it all. Inflamed bowls, constipation, possible infection. We went to our first meeting with my GI specialist, I explained all of my symptoms and he said, "what you're describing to me sounds like Crohn's Disease." Disease? I've always thought of myself as the healthy person that would never get terribly sick let alone a disease. He ran more tests and by the Friday after Christmas of 2013 I was diagnosed with mild to moderate Crohn's disease, mostly in the ileum, although it was also found in my large intestine.
At first I tried to accept if for what it was. I knew there was no cure and that hating myself or getting depressed wasn't the right thing for me. Despite my attempt to stay positive, things got worse. I started to feel ugly because of my pale, sometimes green face. Overweight because I wasn't able to exercise. Alienated because nobody at my school understands. When I came back to school I had a slightly different haircut, but it made all the difference. I also had a completely different schedule for unrelated reasons. Some could barely recognize me, but mostly I think the problem was that I disappeared for half a school year and nobody knew why. They could've jumped to conclusions and figured I had done something like dropped out or got arrested and sent to juvi. I don't do drugs, I don't drink alcohol, and I care about getting school work done more than most teens. But teens are infamous for spreading rumors. Also, because in the long run its none of their business, I didn't make it a priority to tell everyone that I was sick. I just told my teachers and my friends.
Its been hard to re-adjust. I used to eat healthy and work out 6 days a week. Now, I'm just as hungry, but don't have energy to workout so I'm gaining weight. I've tried two stage one medications and they didn't work enough for me to manage a normal schedule. I'm a girl, so my flares take place the same time I have my period, resulting in the loss of more blood. I remember I tried to hang out with a friend of mine when I came back to school, it gets dark early and I couldn't recognize where I was so I got nervous, normally this wouldn't be a problem. I've become quite insecure. I have also become confused, everything seemed to happen so fast. I didn't realize how confused I was until someone that I used to like asked a girl out in front of the whole class. When this happened I didn't know how to feel about it, even though I wouldn't have cared, normally.
I'm still looking for the right medication, I'm currently trying an old stage one medication called sulfasalazine. I'm hoping it works.
September, 2013.
I was fine, I was going to school regularly. I thought this school year would be as successful as any other year if not better. I was working out regularly, I was eating well. My friends seemed comfortable in my presence, I felt like I belonged at school because I was present, normally.
By the second week of October, I got sick. I thought it was just the flu, I stayed home on Friday, in hopes of fighting it off. I returned to school for the following week. I got sick again. I stayed home for a week. I wasn't able to go back to school for the rest of that semester. My mother set up an appointment with our primary doctor as soon as she knew this was bigger than the flu. Before that first appointment, I stepped onto the scale as the nurse took my weight and measurements. "124 lb" appeared on the scale. I had lost 6 pounds, and all I was doing was laying around in bed, eating dairy queen, Pizza Hut, etcetera. I explained to the doctor that I was loosing hair, that I had terrible stomach pains, diarrhea, fever. She took a blood test, one week later we had a follow up and she said, "you are just severely anemic" I was relieved. She prescribed me an OTC antacid, and I ate iron rich foods to fix the anemia. But my symptoms weren't gone. We went back a few weeks later, she agreed to do x-ray and ultrasound testing. They found nothing with the ultra sound. The only thing they found in the x ray was terrible constipation. She didn't do any thing else after that. She continued to insist I was just backed up. She told me to take gas-x and laxatives. We tried it, but it didn't work. She said she could refer us to a GI specialist and allow a CT scan at after we persisted that we knew something was wrong.
The CT scan found it all. Inflamed bowls, constipation, possible infection. We went to our first meeting with my GI specialist, I explained all of my symptoms and he said, "what you're describing to me sounds like Crohn's Disease." Disease? I've always thought of myself as the healthy person that would never get terribly sick let alone a disease. He ran more tests and by the Friday after Christmas of 2013 I was diagnosed with mild to moderate Crohn's disease, mostly in the ileum, although it was also found in my large intestine.
At first I tried to accept if for what it was. I knew there was no cure and that hating myself or getting depressed wasn't the right thing for me. Despite my attempt to stay positive, things got worse. I started to feel ugly because of my pale, sometimes green face. Overweight because I wasn't able to exercise. Alienated because nobody at my school understands. When I came back to school I had a slightly different haircut, but it made all the difference. I also had a completely different schedule for unrelated reasons. Some could barely recognize me, but mostly I think the problem was that I disappeared for half a school year and nobody knew why. They could've jumped to conclusions and figured I had done something like dropped out or got arrested and sent to juvi. I don't do drugs, I don't drink alcohol, and I care about getting school work done more than most teens. But teens are infamous for spreading rumors. Also, because in the long run its none of their business, I didn't make it a priority to tell everyone that I was sick. I just told my teachers and my friends.
Its been hard to re-adjust. I used to eat healthy and work out 6 days a week. Now, I'm just as hungry, but don't have energy to workout so I'm gaining weight. I've tried two stage one medications and they didn't work enough for me to manage a normal schedule. I'm a girl, so my flares take place the same time I have my period, resulting in the loss of more blood. I remember I tried to hang out with a friend of mine when I came back to school, it gets dark early and I couldn't recognize where I was so I got nervous, normally this wouldn't be a problem. I've become quite insecure. I have also become confused, everything seemed to happen so fast. I didn't realize how confused I was until someone that I used to like asked a girl out in front of the whole class. When this happened I didn't know how to feel about it, even though I wouldn't have cared, normally.
I'm still looking for the right medication, I'm currently trying an old stage one medication called sulfasalazine. I'm hoping it works.
Yes, I exercise a lot. Bryana, once you get on a good mix of medications and feel better, you should be able to start exercising again too. You may not be able to go back to working out 6 days a week, you'll have to find your new normal and figure out what your body can and cannot do. My advice is to start off slowly and don't push yourself too hard at first, really try to listen to your body. See what your body can do - abdominal exercises might have to be avoided, or if you have joint pain/arthritis then you may have to be gentle on those joints and do low-impact cardio (as opposed to something like jogging). I would say start out with something like gentle yoga or short walks to get yourself back on track. If you're looking to lift weights, start with light weights and few reps/sets, and build yourself back up. It may take awhile and it could be frustrating, but you can do it. Being chronically ill is definitely a big hurdle to working out, but it's not impossible. If anything, I enjoy working out much more now. I have to work harder at it than a "healthy" person would, but I appreciate it much more too. I really have to listen to my body, and it's hard to make myself rest when my body is saying that exercise is just not going to happen today, but that also makes me appreciative of the days that I'm feeling well enough to hit the gym. I enjoy being in the gym and feeling like I'm proactively doing something to make my body healthier and fight my illness physically. 