I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 1999 when I was 25 years-old. It all began when I was a Junior in college, five years earlier. I started with ulcer pain, burning, etc. I changed doctors four times in four years as I moved on to graduate school and then to the real world. Each time, they wanted to do their own studies, their own tests, each time more and more invasive. I had incredible doctors, actually. However, my Crohn's is rare and in hind site can see why they tested me for so many other things. My colon was and is healthy. My stomach is not. I didn't have the most common signs of Crohn's Disease. It wasn't until I was working full-time in 1999 that my stomach swelled shut and I had to have emergency surgery that my diagnosis became official. At that point, I had to have a gastric bypass in order to allow even water to leave my stomach without vomiting. They resected a foot of my small intestine, performed a vagotomy, and just for fun they removed my appendix :) It wasn't a hugely successful surgery, as there was more they wanted to do and couldn't, as time just ran out. Within 15 months I had to do it all again and had another surgery with more resection of my small intestine. Abdominal surgeries suck to tell you the truth. I cried buckets when I found out I had to do it again. And for fourteen years I have been doing everything possible to avoid another one.
While my surgeries provided relief for me at the time, we never treated the cause. After years of drugs not working for me and trial and error on my own, I have figured out how to help myself thru my diet. I am not perfect in my diet, but I certainly know how to relieve my pain or avoid it by avoiding the triggers in my life. Everyone has different triggers. For some its corn, wheat, or sugar. For me...its sugar. And don't even try to tell me I can eat Nutrasweet or Splenda because the fake sugars hurt me more than refined sugar. The worst part is...I LOVE SUGAR! But sugar is literally killing me.
It has been a long journey, but not a journey without hope. If I had known then what I know now, I would have saved an incredible amount of pain and heartache for me and my family. I would have prevented multiple painful surgeries. I wouldn't have missed a best friend's wedding, or seen fear in my parent's faces after my first surgery that didn't accomplish all we hoped. I wouldn't have missed work or moved back home twice to be nursed back to health. I wouldn't have seen my parents cry or spent nights sleeping on my bathroom floor. I wouldn't have missed school programs because of important procedures or been faced with my sweet children finding me writhing in pain on the floor. My husband wouldn't have missed days of work to take care of me and I wouldn't have missed days in my life while I fought through great amounts of pain. I wouldn't have taken enormous amounts of drugs or worried for the life and health of my third child as he grew inside of me. My children wouldn't worry, my husband wouldn't worry and my parents wouldn't worry if I knew then what I know now. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have suffered nearly as much, but I also wouldn't have clung to my hope in God. I wouldn't have found myself praying desperately and tearfully to be healed, and I wouldn't find myself here writing a blog of hope for all those who suffer from Crohns, or any debilitating disease.
If I knew then what I knew now, where would the miracle be in my story?
