So currently it’s:
7:00am — Two mesalamine pills for my colitis and two snorts of corticosteroid for my hayfever
3:00am — Two mesalamine pills for my colitis
7:00pm — Two snorts of corticosteroid for my hayfever
Dinner — One multivitamin to make up for the foods I can’t eat due to colitis
11:00pm — Two mesalamine pills for my colitis and 20mg of cetirizine hydrochloride for my hayfever
I expect to be wearing adult diapers and using a walker any day now.
One of the drugs I’ve been prescribed for my colitis, Asacol, is delay-released, which means it has a special coating that makes it travel through the stomach, and absorbed only in the colon. This specific brand is released in the left and end of the colon, which is where my colitis is. I often get conflicting advice about how to take the drug:
It’s generally taken that the doctor’s advice takes precedence over anything else. But as a person who works in the medical industry, where doctors are frequently revealed to be incompetent, I know that not all of them know what they’re talking about.
Scary, for an industry in which we put so much blind faith. Who am I supposed to believe?
The cancer has spread to her bones and several major organs now. We asked the doctor not to tell her, but we can’t do anything against his moral obligation to inform the patient. Either way, she doesn’t know how serious it is, whether it’s from shock and denial, or memory loss.
But she’s awake, and aware, and feeling no pain, which is good enough for me. The most we can do now is to try to make the rest of her life as enjoyable as possible.
She thinks she’s going to be fine. Keeps telling me that she’ll take me to a nearby park when she’s better. As much as it hurts me to know this won’t be possible anymore, it’s relieving to know she’s so oblivious. We don’t let ourselves cry around her, for fear that she may realize how bad it is.
Her face is more sallow, her fingers and legs emaciated, but she still has her thick, black hair1. Aside from a distended stomach, it’s hard to tell that she has such a grim prognosis.
But by far the hardest part is having to coddle her like a child to take her medication. Telling her she’s a good girl if she swallows her pills and rewarding her with ice-cream. That we’re only strict because we care about her. It tears me in half when she gives such a painful look of distaste with every pill we hand her, 18 a day.
She used to be so strong. Now we have to be strong for her.
Warning: This may be a little too much information for some. I find it funny that almost a year ago, Tiana crowned herself the winner of our inadvertent competition on gross-out bodily function blogging, and specifically mentioned that to top her period-blogging I would need to do a live blogging of a colonoscopy. I was too sedated to do a live blogging, so this is a night-of blogging.
Bishop takes rook-pawn, Tiana. Your move.
The first (overnight) laxative is to clean out your colon of all solid wastes. It doesn’t kick in overnight, it starts working in about an hour, which means you aren’t going to get much sleep.
The second laxative (magnesium citrate) makes your intestine absorb water through osmosis, so that you start passing liquid for a more thorough cleaning. The magnesium citrate wasn’t as bad tasting as I expected (sort of a chemically sour lemonade), but that, along with having to drink ten glasses of water to make it effective, did make me slightly nauseous.
When liquid comes out of you from this end, it doesn’t make a nice contained splosh. No, it goes everywhere. I lost track of how many times I went to the bathroom, and used almost two rolls of toilet paper in two days. And when you wipe this many times, even three-ply, ultra-soft toilet paper feels like it’s coated in diamond dust and dipped in acid.
I was able to get through a decent chunk of my novel, The Last Light of the Sun, and learned from GQ how to “Work That Tan”, why Shia LaBeouf is the upcoming bad boy of Hollywood, and that Rolex makes a $37,500 nautical watch.
You really don’t feel like doing anything but lie around when going through this. As such, I was able to finish God of War 2, and unlocked the awesome Cod of War costume, which still makes me laugh every time a Greek soldier addresses Kratos as “My lord!” when he’s wearing it.
Every person I spoke to who had a colonoscopy said that it was a breeze. Not so for me.
Pretty much as soon as they injected the sedative into my IV, I passed out, only to be awoken by bouts of agony. I’d say that for the entire procedure I was only conscious for about two minutes in total, but those two minutes were not fun. I don’t think I would have woken up if it wasn’t for the pain.
Part of the discomfort is supposed to come from injecting air into the colon so they can better see the colon. I couldn’t tell if it was that, the instrument they used to do it, or the endoscope itself snaking into my colon, but I felt a sharp pressure on both the anal cavity, and inside the colon.
I remember screaming through gritted teeth, grabbing the handles of the bed, swearing, and thinking that I should have better manners before passing out again.
At one point, someone also had to hold me down, and uttered comforting words, but I couldn’t make out what he said.
Since the colon is inflated with air, I was warned that I’d be passing gas for a while after the procedure. This is true, and very involuntary.
I have severe ulceritive colitis, which is an inflammatory bowel disease. The doctor showed me pictures of my colon; the right side is fine, but the left side is so inflamed that it’s black, red, and bleeding. All the information is being sent to another specialist, whom I’m very glad to be able to see soon.
I was pretty groggy for a while after, partially because I hadn’t eaten in two days, and partially because of the sedative. Every time I stood up, I felt like I was going to pass out.
Right now, I have to take 12 pills a day, one of them being prednisone, a steroid to suppress the overactive immune system responses, the other being mesalamine, an anti-inflammitory drug to bring the swelling under control. These drugs are scary. The side effects are pretty bad, but the doctor judged the benefits to outweigh the potential risks.
I may have to take pills (considered “maintenance medications” to prevent relapse) for the rest of my life. While I feel this lowers my quality of life, it’s much better than dealing with the flare-ups and side effects of colitis. Aside from that, the only cure is to have part of my colon removed in surgery, which I really don’t want to do.
The diagnosis of having a chronic digestive disease is not great, but I’m very relieved to have an explanation of the mystery pains, along with a treatment plan.
I hate, hate, hate being alone when I’m feeling sick. My stomach still feels very funny and unsettled. So Julie came over last night to hang out a bit and to take my mind off everything, and watch some Robson Arms.
The mind, knowing something painful or unpleasant is going to happen to the body, can prepare for such situations. Which is why I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t wake up this morning, and think, “At some point today, someone will put a plastic tube in my ass, and shine a flashlight into it”.
Yet this is exactly what happened. With a lack of formality, after telling me to “Just relax”, the doctor inserts a speculum (in this case, the aptly named “anoscope”) in my anal cavity.
Unprepared for the sensation, I brace myself and grab the edge of the bed. I wouldn’t say that the feeling was painful as much as…unsavory.
“Just try to relax”, he repeats, with words added about an attempt. I thought he was already all the way in. I was wrong. With a thrust, he goes deeper.
I can’t stop laughing. It’s half nervous, half hysterical. This doctor must think I’m enjoying this.
But no doctor has ever done this before, or been so thorough in going over my symptoms, and it’s a far cry from the healthcare I’ve been getting before. So, after he literally wipes of my ass of the excess lubrication and I’m tucking the tails of my dress shirt into my pants, I thank him.
Wait. I hope he doesn’t take that the wrong way.
He tells me I need a colonoscopy. As I’m booking my appointment, the receptionist hands me a colonoscopy kit (at $25) which includes:
The laxatives are to completely clean out my system so they can see what’s going on inside my colon. The nausea tablets are to counteract the unpleasant taste of the magnesium citrate. I haven’t been able to eat anything with seeds three days prior, and nothing but clear liquids at two days until the procedure. Unfortunately, I’m off for two days from work and a night of Tai Chi, as the first round of laxatives has me running to the bathroom at frequent intervals. Louise is driving me to the clinic and back, as I’ll be given two sedatives during the procedure: one to relax me, and one to make me groggy. I’m just hoping that I’ll pass out, and wake up when it’s over.
I called my dad on his birthday this week. After the divorce I would never call him, special occasion or not, simply because I needed to distance myself from the situation. He did call me on mine last year though, which reestablishes a sort of precedence and ritual, and he actually thanked me for the call.
We made the usual small talk, about work and home.
He told me he bought a car: a 2006 Mercedes Benz SLK 55 AMG hard-top convertible with 18″ rims and 7-speed-automatic transmission. He’s going to keep the Beemer for winter driving. It filled my heart with quiet joy when he said I could drive it the next time I visited him. Not so much because he was letting me (for I was always allowed to drive the Sportline 300CE while living at home), but because I could tell in his voice that he wanted me to try it.
I asked him if there’s any history of colorectal cancer in the family, which the doctor wanted to know at my last appointment, to which my dad answered, thankfully, no. He shared with me his own health concerns, the medical terms of which he only knows in Chinese. These are things I avoid asking about when I visit him, as he pops some pills from a bottle kept with the dishes in the kitchen, and I realize that I’m learning more about my dad than ever. It’s not so much out of a need for privacy or avoidance of embarrassment, but simply out of convenience, as these topics would never get brought up.
I remember him trying to teach me photography when I was younger, but he soon lost interest, in both photography and me1. Maybe it’s the distance that makes us appreciate each other more, and it wouldn’t be the same if we lived in the same city.
In a way, I’m glad to have the relationship now, and I’m able to forget that I’ve never had it for most of my life.
I recently started a course of Isotretinoin, a strong medication used to cure severe acne by altering DNA transcription. For some reason, my acne has really flared up in my late twenties. I would get huge cysts on my face that would last for weeks, not to mention the hyper-pigmentation that would last even longer after the cyst went away. Needless to say, it was making me very anti-social when I was talking to people and felt like there was a huge distraction on my face.
I was referred to a dermatologist, who gave me a prescription for “full strength” (according to my body weight) to see if I could handle the side effects. The pharmacist asked me if she made a mistake because they don’t offer a dosage that strong, so now I take a combination of two dosages.
Due to the potency of the medication, there’s a huge list of side effects. The scariest is the mood changes. I’m supposed to stop the dose if I start experiencing:
As a person who’s suffered from suicidal thoughts in the past, this was quite a frightening proposition. I asked my friends to be aware, just in case I don’t notice any changes in myself.
So far though, the only side effect has been extremely dry skin, especially on the face. The lips have been the worst; I can’t eat or drink anything without applying a thick layer of moisturizer on them, otherwise they peel like mad.
Prior to this, the only time I used Vaseline was as a sexual lubricant.
Now I get aroused every time I breathe in.
With a tone of genuine concern, as if I was being consumed by some disease, Abdallah told me he noticed I was getting thinner. Perhaps this is true. I was recovering from an episode of IBS, and controlling my food intake. Maybe its my sets of narrow, flared pants I’ve been wearing lately on Julie’s suggestion1.
Louise tells people I don’t eat a lot, which is true only when we’re out 2, and is also the only time she’s seen me eat. It makes me even more ill at ease when I’m already feeling unattractive, as if it was my fault and I wasn’t doing enough about it. Others will comment about the size of my waist, or make a passing remark about how they wish they had my metabolism.
According to my doctor, I’m average weight — the average being a range, with me being near the bottom. I know this, but it doesn’t make it easier. Bronwen once told me that I have a weight issue, and after thinking about it for a while, I realized that it was true. Even though it’s something I can joke about, it’s still a source of self-consciousness, leading back to memories of my parents telling me that no one will love me if I’m this size forever.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get over it.
He doesn’t listen to me. He’ll ask me a question, then cut me off. He trivializes my symptoms.
Next thing I know, I’m rushed out of office.
He’s a nice guy, but nice doesn’t get you healthy.
Somehow, Aaron talked me into a doctors appointment for a general physical examination, something I’ve been avoiding for years now. Turns out nothing is wrong, as far as the doctor can tell, and I opted to skip the blood test. I brought up some issues I thought I might have, but he waved them off as being fairly normal. I wasn’t too nervous because everything in my life seems to be going fine, so some bad news wouldn’t have hurt (as opposed to before, where it would have been another problem added to my list). I was looking forward to some bad news actually, as if conveniently having it now would mean that I’d be free for another few years.
