My Journey to the Truth... "You Can't Handle the Truth!"

Hey All! I hope everyone had a great day today!

I was diagnosed on 4/20/2011 and I am happy that I was finally diagnosed.

Since 2006, I have been dealing with abdominal pain, severe anemia, fatigue, or what my parents called LAZINESS! Is started college in Fall of 2007 and I would have great grades, then towards the middle of the semester my grades would drop, I would stop going to class, gain a lot of weight and tell people I was tired. This has been my tradition for four years now. My parents thought that I was just being lazy and slacking off but somedays I would be too physically weak to get out of bed. Other times, I would have spurts of "restlessness" and want to go out and have fun.

Since freshman year, I have had severe rectal itching, blood in my stool, severe anemia, and weight gain! I would go to the doctor and she would just tell me that I need to exercise or that it was the scar tissue from surgery I had before that made my anus itch.

But this semester was so different. I was making great grades [well, that usually happens] and in March, I started complaining about abdominal pain. I went to my PCP [primary care physician] and she diagnosed me with a UTI and gave me antibiotics. The pain went away but came back with a severe vengeance. I was in so much pain, people could see it on my face. I tried to suck it up and still attend class. I felt like I was already a let down because I wasn't graduating on time. Finally, the pain got to the point where I was throwing up horribly. Being an hour and a half away from home, I drove myself to the emergency room. My parents later joined me, as well as some classmates and I was diagnosed with a UTI again!

They gave me more antibiotics, put me on bed rest for a few days and sent me on my way. Five days later, the pain was worse. I couldn't hold any food down and was throwing up bile. I had NO ENERGY and had pretty much come to terms that I was just going to die... alone... in my bathroom. Luckily, my mom got in touch with me and some friends came to pick me up and take me to the Emergency Room. There they diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome... I think. I was so doped up on drugs, that I had no idea up from down.

After that, my parents decided it would be best to take me back to Atlanta, where they could watch me and help me get better. Now on my 3rd or 4th round of antibiotics, I couldn't even keep them down. I was throwing up more bile. And to top it off, my mom kept trying to give me more medicine. Finally, they took me to the Emergency Room. The average wait time was 3 hours, so my parents thought it would be best to take me to another one but I refused to move. HELLO??? Can someone just get me a bed to die in? As soon as we were about to leave, they triaged me and took me right back. Thank God! My wait time was 30 minutes. But when we got back there, they wanted to send me home and just refer me to a GI. My mom refused to take me home. Thanks Mom! They admitted me to the hospital and gave me Morphine. They did another CT Scan.... I forgot to mention the first one.

The next day, I met a surgeon and my GI, Dr. Sunshine [such a great name]. The surgeon told me that I had a bowel obstruction and it looked pretty "nasty." He would probably have to take me down to the table the next day. Dr. Sunshine then decided to order me a colonoscopy and I had to drink that nasty salty stuff to clean me out. MIND YOU, I HAVEN'T HAD ANYTHING TO EAT IN A WEEK= STARVING! After the colonoscopy, he told me that I had Crohn's Disease. So now I am on Prednisone [40mg and tapering], Pentasa [4000mg] and Iron [325mg]. Everytime I take my medicine, I feel like an AIDS patient.

Since then, I've been trying to figure out what to eat, how to have some energy, how to lose my Crohn's weight and how to make up all this school time.

Positive Side: My dad and mom aren't upset anymore about me not graduating on time because they see that it wasn't my fault.

Negative Side: I have to take out more Student Loans to fund my extra year of school.