My Life With Crohns So Far... Part 4

So, my brother has Crohns. I pray to lay the burden of the disease upon me to help him. God says Yes. I end up bleeding profusely at one of my brother's wedding rehearsals. I ended up in a hospital in Indiana, in the emergency room, as the doctors work feverishly to stop the bleeding.

They eventually get me stable. At the end of it all I had I lost something like a pint and a half of blood. I was just about to get a transfusion when the bleeding stopped. So, they admitted me to the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and, as it turned out, the only room available was in the Neuro Ward. The Neuro Ward is for people with head or spinal injuries… those poor people!

Now, it's important to understand that I had never been in a hospital before, so I was really nervous. I've never been in a hospital... I'm in a city I’ve never been in.. I'm away from home... Alone... In the Neuro Ward.

By the time I got to my room, it was night and I was weak and exhausted. And as I started to drift off to sleep I suddenly hear a patient down the hall scream in a delusional state “THEY’RE KILLING ME! THEY’RE KILLING ME! OH GOD, HELP ME, THEY'RE KILLING ME!”

That made me feel much better.

All night it was “HELP, THEY’RE KILLING ME!” over and over again. When that finally subsided, every time I would start to nod off to sleep, the nurse would come in, wake me up, take my vitals and draw more blood After a while I’m like, “C’mon! I bled all over the emergency room! Can’t you just get some there?” The nurse smiled and informed me that they needed to make sure the bleeding had stopped and that my blood count was rising.

After a couple of days the sent me home. I missed the wedding and I had forgotten to put film in the camera. So, my parents spent the entire wedding clicking an empty camera only to find out weeks later that no pictures were taken. Fortunately, I had a good excuse.

The docs put me on a whole bunch of meds until I could get home and see a gastroenterologist. The medicine of choice was prednisone. Prednisone is a frickin’ miracle drug! I believe everyone on the planet should be on prednisone for two weeks. In those first two weeks, you become the best person you’ll ever be. Your be extremely creative, extremely efficient… your house will be spotless, a stream of consciousness of great ideas will just flow through you. You are at the pinnacle of your existence.

Then, after two weeks, the side effects start to appear. See, there’s this little button in your brain that, when pushed, tells you you’re hungry. Well, when you’re on prednisone it’s suddenly as if a computer gamer is hitting that button with blazing speed, as if his chance to become ruler of the gaming universe depended on it. You are always hungry. And you rarely sleep. I remember waking up from an excessive four hours of sleep with the idea that I was in desperate need of a six egg cheese omelet. Which, by the way, I followed up with an entire pack of Oreo cookies and milk. And my brain was telling me I was still hungry!

Another side effect of prolonged prednisone usage is intense indigestion. So, you’re always hungry and you’ve got volcanic indigestion! A great combination! And you retain water. And you gain weight. And your face blows up like a balloon. And you’ll have unpredictable and offensive mood swings. And your sweat gets really thick. And your hair is always greasy. And you lose hair on your head and gain it elsewhere on your body where God did not intend it! And you’re covered with pimples.

In other words, you become extremely sexy!

To be continued...