I have not been looking forward to writing this post. I kept postponing it in the hopes symptoms would cease. Crohn's is back! There we go, I said it. While my doctors never said I was in remission, I was doing extremely well and it certainly felt like Crohn's was in remission. For the past few weeks, I've been experiencing blood and mucus in my stool along with going to the bathroom more frequently. Occasional pain, but thankfully the pain has been manageable. Fatigue is showing its ugly head. Tiredness is haunting me. Running is hard.
The scariest part for me are the new symptoms I am also experiencing. I've been passing fecal matter in my urine and passing gas through my urethra. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!!! What if the good days are over? I am going to be astonished if this does not require surgery.
I saw my colorectal specialist on Friday. Although I didn't get any answers, we did make a plan. I'm going to be scheduling a colonoscopy with my gastro so that we can take a better look at the active disease and then use the findings to discuss and re-evaluate medication options. I'm also going to be scheduling a barium enema with my colorectal specialist where we will use the contrast in the barium to see the structure of my large intestine on x-rays where we're looking for abnormalities like fistulas leading into my urethra.
A lot of my running friends have science backgrounds, so it's nice to get input from them. I have been very open about Crohn's with my new friends, which is liberating and terrifying at the same time. My friends, new and old, have been amazingly supportive and understanding. I am beyond grateful for the people in my life that care about me and motivate me to seek answers. A newer friend offered to go with me to appointments and I think I'm going to take her up on it once I schedule my colonoscopy and barium enema. Someone thought I had lost 15 lbs. in the past two weeks. Even though I haven't been weighing myself regularly, I think I've only lost 5 - 7 lbs. and I don't think it's that obvious I have lost weight.
I'll keep you posted...
