The BIG Decision
It is now March of 2015 and I felt it was a good idea to recap a couple
things in case I missed any important information. Since 2012, Melissa has been
taking Azacol, Mercaptopurine, and occasionally Steroids. From 2012-2015 she has
had multiple flare ups and quite a few hospital visits. She had a situation
where she was experiencing excruciating migraines. She was admitted to the
hospital to figure things out and they weren’t giving her, her medicine on time. This caused her to
have an even worse flare up and they suggested another colonoscopy thinking she
might have CMV which is a bacterial infection in the colon. This was scary
because for a time in the hospital she had short term memory loss and couldn’t
even remember the name of her kids. We were blessed that everything returned
and she was able to go back to being the sweet Melissa we know.
She continued to struggle
being out of remission and fighting so hard to get back to being healthy. She
started on an infusion medicine called remicade. This is something that her GI
doctor said was the last hope. She started receiving the infusions and actually
showed signs of improvement for about a week. I had switched to part time for a
while at this point and now that she had started feeling better I switched back
to full time. This had happened once in the past and the curse continued. As
soon as I switched to full time she started having blood in her stool again and
started feeling very sick. She tried another infusion and it didn’t have the
same affect. She had another colonoscopy done and her GI doctor said her colon
was the worst he had ever seen with UC. As you could imagine, not exactly the
news we were looking for. At this point he was pretty adamant that surgery was
the only option left and suggested a couple of surgeons to go see. We met with
a woman and went over the information and Melissa left feeling very nervous and
scared. She wasn’t thinking surgery was going to be the option for her. We
decided to meet with another surgeon and we had a much better experience. At
this point surgery became a serious consideration.
Melissa was
putting a lot of thought into this and decided to reach out for some advice.
She joined a Ulcerative Colitis Facebook group and found a lot of comfort in
it. She asked a lot of questions about the surgery and advice. She received an
overwhelming amount of comments and support. It actually gives me chills
thinking about but she received probably 20 to 30 remarks from people who had
done the surgery and not a single one advised against it. They were all so
happy that they were able to be healthy and happy again. They didn’t have any
more fear of the pain and the urgency to run to the restroom. Melissa always
hated the fact that if we were going out somewhere she had to make sure she
knew where the restroom was at all times. These are some of the little things
that a lot of people probably don’t know goes on with someone with UC. Melissa
is terrified that she might end up in a situation where she is out with the
kids and has to run to the bathroom taking both with her. She doesn’t have the
pleasure of eating the things that she enjoys because it makes her feel so much
worse. She looks forward to the day she can eat a steak and a salad again. She
loses sleep over the thought that she can’t be a good mother because she
doesn’t always have the energy to play with the kids. These are some things
that often bring her to tears but she always does so well not to show it. She
fights through those thoughts and amazes us that she is still able to be the
best mother. Thinking that she would never have to worry about having an
accident, or running to the bathroom 20 times a day, is just another check on
the list which was making her consider surgery. She would be able to eat what
she wanted and not have to take the 9-12 pills every day that are probably
harming her body.
These were some of the things that other people were pointing out
to her and she started tosee the positive. Her biggest fear was that she was
going to be stuck with a bag. If you aren’t familiar with how the surgery
works, they remove the entire colon. They then make a stoma in the abdomen and
attach the small intestine to it. They also create what is called a j-pouch.
This is all done with the first surgery. The j-pouch is basically where they
create a new rectum since the other was removed. After healed from the first
surgery they then go back in and connect the small intestine to the j-pouch so
it was working almost the same as before with a few differences of course. The
small intestine connected to the abdomen was the part Melissa was terrified of.
I’m sure that no person plans on having a bad attached to their stomach where
their bowel movements move out of. The reason she was so concerned is there is
a small chance that something goes wrong and you would have to have the bag for
the remainder of your life. This is something that a lot of the supporters
mentioned. They stated that even if they had to keep a bag for the rest of
their life it still was worth it because they had their life back.
February of 2015
Melissa made the decision that she was going to have the surgery. She wasn’t
getting into remission, the remicade was not working, and this was her last
resort to finally feel better. We prayed a ton to make sure this was the right
step for our family and we gave Melissa blessings to help her better her
decision. She scheduled the appointment with the doctor and we sorted out the
plans for her recovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment