Yes, I’ve cut down the blogging by A LOT. This update is to explain why.
Starting last August I began feeling an excruciating, centralized pain — enough that I made an emergency doctor’s appointment, fearing cancer. After 3 doctors appointments and 3 months of dealing with the worst pain of my life, they finally discovered what was wrong. I had a problem with a blood vessel that caused blood to flow backwards in the offbeat of my heart in a specific location (trust me, you’d prefer me be a little vague on this). It required surgery to fix — surgery that would require me living with the pain another month pre-surgery and a month post-surgery.
While doing the surgery, the doctor discovered that it wasn’t a problem with a single blood vessel as they originally thought, but the problem had occurred in 13 that all connected blood flow to the same organ (hence it hurting so bad). Post surgery, everything seemed great. The constant pain stopped in only a couple days! It seriously felt like a miracle after so many months of suffering.
Then real problems started. By now, It’s late November. I started noticing that I was losing a little weight and having some digestive issues. I wasn’t concerned at first, because I had taken antibiotics that killed off everything, so I figured they’ll balance out and I’ll be good in a couple days. A couple days later, I believed I might be dying. I felt uncontrollably sick. I couldn’t sleep because I was throwing up and going to bathroom 5+ time an hour. 2 weeks after the surgery, I was down 15 pounds.
I made an emergency appointment at the doctor and described all of my symptoms. They did a test and found out that I had picked up a bug at the hospital that doesn’t die from the antibiotics given post-surgery. They gave me more antibiotics that are known to kill it. After a few days my symptoms went away and after 2 weeks I was out of medicine. Everything seemed good.
Late December I started getting all the symptoms back, but WORSE. My grandpa died at the same time, so the doctor prescribed me another round of antibiotics over the phone because sometimes it’s been known to take a second round to kill.
A week later (the beginning of January) I returned to do more labs at the hospital to ‘test for cure’. The bug was still present and thriving. At this point, it is now confirmed that my bug is drug resistant so they did additional tests and found out that I also have the worst strain known to exist of the bug.
Now, fast forward to last Sunday. I got off work and went to the emergency room. During my shift, it became obvious that the bug was trying to kill me…and winning. I was bleeding internally and the cause was traced back to the bug literally eating through my digestive system. This is a scary thought. They took all sorts of body samples to make sure nothing else had been affected, and started me immediately on a VERY powerful and VERY expensive medicine. It’s prescribed so rarely that all the Hy-Vee’s from IC to Davenport had a combined 2 pills… I need 8 a day. I was able to find a pharmacy with half the pills I needed, the other half they had to fly in for me.
Doing research, I found out that doctors are typically not allowed to prescribe the medicine — they call it a “drug of last resort.” It’s an antibiotic that is mostly still not resisted by bacteria. It is only allowed to be prescribed when all other options have been exhausted to preserve it’s integrity and prevent diseases from gaining resistance to it.
I’m nearing the end of this round of treatment, never missing a dose and even waking up in the middle of sleep to take the medicine on time. To be honest, I’m afraid. My symptoms have certainly receded, but they haven’t gone away. With the first few attempts at killing it, they completely away — if this doesn’t kill the bug I have very options left. For my readers who pray, this is a good thing to pray for.
If this doesn’t work, I am in trouble. I have 3 options. Option 1 is to have my colon and damaged part of my intestines removed as well as my whole system flushed. This is the ABSOLUTE worst case scenario. Option 2 would require me to be an inpatient at the hospital and on an IV with medicine constantly trying to kill it, until they are sure that it’s completely dead and coming back. This could take a while, and those who know me know that I never want a stay in the hospital to last more than 24 hours. Option 3 requires someone healthy making a donation for me. It wouldn’t be painful, but it would be disgusting and uncomfortable for a day or two. This is obviously my preferred method to go from here if I have to keep fighting it. However, it is likely going to be hard to find a suitable donor who is willing to do it. Like I said, it’s gross…really gross.
So that’s where I’m at. I’ve lost a pretty big chunk of weight and as hard as I try, I cannot eat enough calories to get back to my normal, healthy weight. It’s weird to think that if I were in a 3rd world country, or a country where food and especially water is readily and universally available, I would likely be dead already. God has really provided for me, and I’m praying that he will continue to. In the mean time, I’d really appreciate prayers.
The Adventures of a Garden Gnome Enthusiast 