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I’ll be in shape for summer

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The other day I wrote a post on my other blog about how I’ve been losing weight lately thanks to having been sick at the end of April. That’s one thing about Crohn’s … when it’s acting up you can lose a lot of weight – often weight you don’t need to lose – quite quickly!

I certainly won’t be needing any weight loss pills to get in bathing suit shape by summer!

I’m actually starting to worry that I might lose too much weight if this doesn’t stop or slow down soon!

What’s worse, I feel awful. I had to stop one of the Crohn’s meds that I just started taking in April, last week because I have to have a biopsy on a thyroid tumor on Thursday. The medication I was taking can thin your blood so I had to stop taking anything that might slow clotting and thin the blood. So I’m in pain!

Hopefully when I can restart my meds at the end of the week they’ll kick in and make this Crohn’s flare go away! That will stop the rapid weight lose and of course all the abdominal pain that I’ve been having. I hope!

God, I hate being sick, I really do!





I think I deserve a holiday

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Sorry I haven’t written for a while. I’ve just been feeling awful lately. I actually had a reaction to a new medication I was trying, Sulfasalazine, two weeks ago, and it made me feel so bad that up until a few days ago I was basically just laying around trying to get through each day. It’s awful when you medications that you’re taking to feel better make you feel 10 times worse!

I think that after all I’ve been through this year alone it might be time to try to take a holiday … well if my body will co-operate and let me feel good enough to go away for a few days. I’d love to go to Vegas for the weekend, maybe our long weekend in May … hmmm, that sounds good! One of our friends recently went to Vegas and stayed at the Stratosphere hotel. She really enjoyed the place so maybe I’ll see if they have any deals coming up.

Don’t get me wrong … I’m glad spring is here, but after being so sick for the last two weeks I could use a break from home. I’m sick of looking at my house. I need to get out.

Do you need a vacation or short get away too?

A new doctor for my Crohn’s disease

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I saw a new doctor about my Crohn’s disease the other day. He’s an internist rather than a gastrointernologist like I usually see. I haven’t decided yet whether I’m happy with the new doctor or not.

He wants me to go back and start from the beginning on my meds. This weekend I’ll start trying a new Crohn’s drug – well not a new drug, but new to me. It’s worth a try … I just hope that I can afford it! My gastrointernologist had taken me off most of my Crohn’s meds a while ago because he was convinced they weren’t working … duh! No matter how much I told him they were helping … hey I was still working! When I got taken off the other meds I got so sick I had to stop working and I’ve been on medical leave ever since (4 years!).

So if the new meds work, maybe in a few months I can go back to work in the ER. I hope so! I’d actually started to give up hope of ever returning to work again.

He also wants me to try taking Metamucil again. I’ve tried it in the past but didn’t have much good to say about it as it seems to bind me up too much rather than help … odd since my problem is the opposite reason most people take Metamucil! Anyway, I’ve started using it once a day but only using a teaspoon full instead of a heaping tablespoon as the directions state. Maybe that will help.

It’s weird. Ever since I saw the new doctor earlier this week I keep seeing ads for Bowtrol review. Very strange. A colon cleanse is the last thing I need! LOL

Anyway .. don’t you hate it when you have to see a new doctor? Whether it’s a new family doctor or a specialist? I do. I hate going over my medical history and all the meds I’m on or that I’ve tried in the past for my Crohn’s.

My back is screaming!

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It was such a nice day here in Toronto that my husband and I decided to take the dog outside in the backyard and do some yard work.

We had actually started raking the lawn and tidying up the yard a little bit early last Monday evening, but now I can say that the backyard garden is cleaned of old dead leaves and foliage and looks great. Now we just have to clean up our very tiny front yard and our planted boulevard and the Spring cleaning will be done. At least outside …

I feel good having spent several hours working outside today, but my back HATES me right now!

I’ve had an aching back for over a year. I finally got one of my doctors to send me for an xray two weeks ago and just as I thought I’ve got a slipped disk. I’ve been doing back exercises to ease my pain and sleeping with two pillows under my legs at night … and it’s helped, but my back is still pretty bad. Gardening for over 4 hours today will not help at all.

I almost wish that we had a sleep number bed so I could play around with it and maybe find a bed hardness or softness that my back likes. Our mattress is very hard, but maybe it’s too hard. If I don’t sleep with those pillows under my legs I can barely get out of bed in the morning.

Once I came inside this evening I took some Advil and a Tylenol and put a heating pad on my back. I also took some Advil before I went out to work in the garden … but still .. my back is really hurting. I have a feeling that it will be worse tomorrow. Plus I’ll likely have some stiff muscles from all the bending, twisting and odd positions I was in as I tried to clean out my garden beds.

I’ll bet that most people don’t think that gardening is much of a workout, but try doing it for four hours – bending, stretching, lifting things … oh yeah, it’s exercise.

Do you have any aches and pains from doing Spring related activities?

One health crisis after another

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This has been a busy week for me. I’ve had two doctors appointments, one medical test and a ton of computer work to do! I’m glad the week is almost over.

I guess it doesn’t help that I’m not feeling well. (As usual). My Crohn’s is just in a constant flare and my back … well that’s another story … it had been feeling a lot better over the last few weeks, but I must have done something to it yesterday morning before walking to one of my doctors appointments and the next thing I know my lower back is spasming and aching. It’s still acting up, but not as bad as yesterday.

For some reason my pain doctor weighs me every time I see her (usually once a month). I hate it, but for the first time in a while I got some god news when she did her weigh in – I’d lost 8 pounds since my last visit! Yeah! Maybe I’ll be back in fighting form by early summer. Yeah! I even ran into a nurse that I worked with in the ER and she asked me if I’d found a diet pill that works. LOL Nope – just eating healthy (as per normal) and trying to be a little more active. It’s probably the slight increase in activity that helped.

Of course I could be losing weight due to the Crohn’s disease. I once lost something like 35 pounds in one month and it was at a time when I didn’t need to lose an ounce! I could have also lost a few pounds because of my thyroid … I only have half my thyroid due to a precancerous tumor that I had removed – oh … 20 years ago, but the other day I noticed that the right side of my neck, where the remaining half of my thyroid is seems to be slightly swollen so when I went to see the doctor yesterday I asked her to take a look at my neck. She thought it was a little puffy too and sent me for an ultrasound.

The talkative ultrasound tech let me know that my remaining thyroid tissue has several nodules in it and that’s a kick in the ass ’cause I take synthetic thyroid replacement medicine and that’s supposed to help keep a tumor or nodules from reoccurring. So .. I’ve got new nodules in there … so now i might be looking at more precancerous or cancer growths and I might end up having to have surgery to have the rest of my thyroid removed. Fantastic. NOT.

It just seems that it’s once thing after another with my health this year- the constant Crohn’s flares, a slipped disc in my back and now growths in my thyroid that might mean I’ll have to have surgery. What else might happen?

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