Heatherina

Trick or treat

Halloween is approaching.

As you are probably trying to figure out which parties to attend and what accessories will match your costume, I sit and watch Tim Burton films and wonder if Halloween will ever be a normal holiday for me again.

For me it is a marker. The beginning of the end of the life I knew. Not really as melodramatic as it sounds, but I do see it as the start of this seemingly endless journey.

So I sit here and sweep away the cobwebs of my memory, trying to remember how it all began.

As the fall foliage begins to turn… so does my health. It’s September and just recently Jesse has moved in and left to go on tour for two months. My colitis had been flaring up badly since early August, so I was seeing a new gastroenterologist and constantly being switched from medicine to medicine. An unfortunate part of any IBD (irritable bowel disease) is that every person’s condition is different, and every person responds differently to medication. So the best method of treatment is the trial-and-error method. And as each attempt failed, I sank into worse condition. In late September, at Jesse’s urging, I decided to go spend some time at my parent’s in upstate NY. I was living off of Vitamin water, Ensure and protein bars and drinking Yogi tea for digestion. I was also swallowing as many vitamins as my body could handle… at least 2 packets of Emergen-C a day and several acidophilus/pro-biotic supplements. At my doctor’s urging, I had stopped dancing and was only working 2 days/week. And still I was tired all the time, losing weight rapidly, and going to the bathroom 20-30 times a day.

My week-long break slowly kept getting extended as my health failed to improve. Finally, I went to see a specialist near my parents. A visit I will never forget… the foreshadowing of what was to come. He was the first doctor to ever mention the “c” word in connection to colitis. I had been holding off on having a colonoscopy because like so many people my age (approx. 25% of 18-24 years olds in the US), I had no health insurance. But he insisted it was important and said that he could perform the procedure at his office, which would keep costs down, and that he could send the images to my GI in NJ. The word “cancer” was enough to scare me into taking things more seriously, although it was only talked about as a possibility for the distant future if we didn’t get things under control. So, once again I extended my stay until I could undergo the colonoscopy.

A couple of days before Halloween, my mom had a small candle party. One of those very suburban engagements which are more of an excuse for the housewives to get together, drink wine, and gossip about the Joneses. I remember trays of appetizers lining the dining room and yet only being able to stomach rye bread dip and feeling weak and nauseous most of the time… only appearing every now and then to say hello and then retreating to my room. That night, the intense stomach pains and nausea started. My mom and I both wrote it off as mild food poisoning and I started staying on a couch in the family room close to the bathroom. But as days went by and I wasn’t getting better and I began to start not being able to make it the 10 ft from the couch to the bathroom without having an accident or throwing up… I knew something was wrong. And it was getting worse daily. After calling Jesse one night at 3 am writhing in pain, he threatened to end our relationship if I didn’t call the doctor the next day and insist on an appointment.

The next day I called the doctor’s office and told the nurse about my symptoms. She called me back an hour later to say that she was reserving a bed for me at the local hospital. I needed some tests and the doctor wanted me to be observed overnight, so I should pack a bag and she’d call when a bed was ready. I called my mom, who was on her way to a meeting out of town, and told her to turn around because I was going to the hospital. Then I called Jesse and one of my best friends at home, Jessica, who is a nurse to update them. A couple of hours later I had a small overnight bag packed and was on my way down the hospital corridor to the admissions office… I had no idea what I was in store for…

To be continued…