Lessons Learned

When you go through the past few days that I have been through, a main goal is to avoid ever doing this to myself again.  I completely had lost all quality of life, just staying in bed all day, not eating or really drinking anything.  Nothing stayed down.  Simply trying to kill time and hoping to feel better.  I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t improving.  When I was this sick, I could careless about my writing, my work, my happiness, or even taking a shower.  Being an intelligent person, I figured that I need to take a moment and look back to figure out how I could have avoided this situation.

And the #1 reason I can come up with is:

Stop being so stubborn.

I was positive that I could avoid going to the doctor.  That I could self medicate myself with a liquid/low residue diet.  My stomach had started bothering me around Christmas and then got much worse right after New Year’s.  I spent nearly a month attempting to ignore that I have this disease (Crohn’s) and act like I could shake this off.  I really wanted to avoid going on Prednisone and I thought it would be a waste of money going to the doctor.  I figured all he was going to do was to put me on Prednisone and that be that.

Maybe if I had gone to the doctor that week after New Year’s, all he would have had to do was put me on some Prednisone, which I have since determined is definitely not the end of the world.

Instead, I waited for three weeks and I managed to get myself into some scarier medical complications.  Basically, I got lucky and have a caring doctor who was willing to try some other steps before admitting me or doing surgery. Otherwise, I could easily be in the hospital right now, hooked up to IV’s to help rehydrate myself and a nice little medical procedure to help my stomach. Instead, after I begged to avoid surgery and he agreed to let me try some drugs at home to see if they would help. The medications that he has put me on now definitely is much worse than Prednisone (and which I am also on ).  Now I truly have a hard time getting out of bed and doing anything because I am so sick.  But in this case, I have to be sicker before I can get better.  I believe that I’ll be on the road to recovery by tomorrow.

Anyway….if I had just gone to the stupid doctor weeks ago, I wouldn’t be stuck in bed for what feels like the seventh day in the row.  I would be able to go to the gym and workout, something I haven’t done in nearly a week.  I would be able to eat the same food as my husband, something I haven’t done in three weeks,  and I would be able to enjoy a vegetable, which I haven’t consumed in over a week, maybe two.  I wouldn’t be drinking my body weight in ginger ale and pedialyte and I would have some resemblance of quality of life.

I’m a smart, grown woman.  I need to learn when to say when and that going to the doctor isn’t a sign of weakness.  I need to recognize that they are medical professionals for a reason and that they are there to help me. And also, despite having this disease for what feels like my entire life, this does not necessary mean I know what is the best way to treat it.

I truly hope my happy, upbeat post are back soon!

To Smile.