Having gone into the hospital in pain and fear, in an adult ward surrounded by people i now had to spend almost every minute of the day with, my reality would soon be Doctor's questions and then judgement and then many tests.
It was obvious to me that i was not well, in great pain, suffering massive weight loss and sickness and diarrhea. However, the medics thought that i was somehow stressed and anxious as a result of impending examinations, despite me telling them i thought i had what my dad had, Crohns, diagnosed in 1968.
So, they looked inside my head to try figure why i was sick losing weight and looking like crap. they mentioned bulimia and anorexia. I knew it wasn't, i was in agony, my pain was real! the weight was coming off from a physical condition.
Eventually, they accepted it was physical. this was when the 'fun' began!
From being a naive 13 year old boy, i then experienced as many tests incorporating scopes, cameras, biopsies, which explored the dark recesses of my body, no orifice was free from exploration. Talk about Fantastic Journey!
From never wanting a needle i almost had permanent drips in with bags and bags of electrolytes, treatments etc.
For a child with no real experience of hospitals , it was a total shock to have tubes, catheters and biopsies everywhere. not forgetting a naso-gastric tube.
This is not a period i look back to with any fondness, only the shock and the indignity, It didn't make it any easier if it was a male or female nurse, technician or radiographer. I can remember thinking how long does this go on for, how many more places can they come up with to probe?
Then, they finally tell me, yes i was very right its Crohns you will be having surgery on saturday, in 3 days.
Surgery is not a pleasant experience, but i can remember it vividly. It was chucking it down outside my window, around 6am a nurse came to catheterize me, another experience a 13 year old boy doesn't expect. Then, off to surgery, pain, medication, more pain more medication.
I got through that period then had further complications, thrombosis ( dvt ) electrolytes here, there and everywhere...
So, 1976, the hottest summer on record at the time, i don't recall it for that reason. I remeber this as the start of my new life. How things in retrospect would be for me and many other crohns sufferers.
I do recall through all this time, surrounded by men on the wards as patients, nurses and no young people, what are my school mates doing, what about my brother and sister, what were they up to and thinking, how were my family dealing with this? I really had no idea, visiting was a chance for them and me to put a face on, not always achieved.
That summer i saw my first person die, right next to me in a shower cubicle. I can see his face as his life was leaving him, the nurse quickly shuffling me out of the washrooms. I'd never thought about death and dying before that, looking into someone's eyes as they go, focuses the mind.
It always felt different after that on the ward, do i get close to someone, will they die or are they thinking the same about me?
I now look back to this time as the time when my life started afresh, that's not to say prior to that i wasn't happy and had a lovely childhood. Nevertheless i see this time, when crohns became my partner and enemy, as the time my life started in reality. Over time crohns has brought along other problems for me to deal with, its had some wins and i have managed to defeat it at times.
It has been my partner and enemy in equal measures for nearly 36 years, my 1st surgery was almost exactly 36 years ago.
I will try deal with things in future blogs in the present, but using the past to illustrate who i am and why i am this person.
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