My name is Murphi and I decided to create this blog to share my story with Crohn's disease in hope of spreading awareness, and some laughs.
I have always had stomach issues since around the age of 12. Entering high school is when my stomach decided to go full blown IBS and it was one of the most embarrassing times of my life. Every time I ate, or even thought of eating I would be booking it to the bathroom in hope of not shitting myself. Sad, but true! After my rush to the bathroom I would have to pray no one was in there. Diarrhea is not the most quiet of body functions ya know?! If the coast was clear I would just let it go, but if it wasn't I would late. This took a certain level of talent, and a pain tolerance like none other. It's not easy to keep a bathroom explosion inside of you when it is trying to burst out. After I knew no one was in the bathroom.... I let it rip. You can imagine how daunting this was having to do it day in and day out. I constantly had a small bottle of febreeze in my purse and had to refill it regularly. I began to have bathroom anxiety. It was the most embarrassing thing, being a 13 year old freshmen in high school who could barely control her bowels.
Eventually I started scoping out which bathrooms at school were the most secluded and private ones. It was always horrifying to use the bathroom in the common area. It was the most frequented, busy bathroom. To make it worse it did not have an entry way door to it. If you dropped a bomb in there everyone heard it, and they for sure smelt it. I found the bathroom up at the front of the school to be the most private place for me to do my nasty business and not feel like I was getting made fun of for it.
This went on though to be IBS until I turned 18. Can you imagine 5 years of "cautious pooping" with a bag full of embarrassment on the side? It was absolutely horrible. When I turned 18 I was so excited to get a serving job, hello money! The last thing I wanted to think about was how I was going to survive a shift without a shit... damn near impossible with IBS, which was actually Crohn's disease all along. I eventually had a system and picked out the times that the bathroom was not frequented very often and hid air freshener in there too. Same stall, same time, same routine always.
I was working a shift one weekend and I had the sharpest pain shock my whole stomach followed by nausea. My boss was being a huge ass and would not let me leave work. It got to the point where I couldn't stand up past a 90 degree angle and it took me almost throwing up on a table for him to let me go home. After a trip to the emergency room and a week long hospital stay it was evident my stomach issues were much worse than IBS. I had a colonoscopy the next week and the diagnosis of Crohn's was made.
This was the big discovery I was waiting for right? I immediately started to freak out... the only two people I ever had the knowledge of Crohn's disease from had colostomy bags. In my mind I was telling myself "I cannot lose my colon and have to use the bathroom in a bag for the rest of my life, especially starting at the ripe age of 18." After a panic attack and some medication later it was explained the technology and medication options for Crohn's have changed tremendously. I set up a follow up appointment with the original doctor of my diagnosis to further go over the results from my colonoscopy. At this visit the doctor told me "Never mind, you actually don't have Crohn's." This was the MOST aggravating thing for me to hear. I tried to contact his office several times after that visit because I was still in pain and had to stop working and school because it was so bad.
Nine months went by with pain, no treatment, and no hope. It started to cause a strain on my husband and mines relationship. As the pain got worse and I had a rapid amount of weight loss I decided to start searching for a new doctor. After a few searches I found my doctor who I have now seen for four years. He is absolutely amazing! He needed to perform another colonoscopy to properly diagnose and see just how much damage I had to my intestines. Come to find out.... I have Crohn's. Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner! My first colonoscopy showed 2cm of damaged intestine, and just 9 months later I had 18cm of damaged intestine... no Crohn's my ass. After my colonoscopy results came in my new doctor personally called me and answered all of my questions over the course of a 30 minute phone conversation. I have never had a doctor be so kind hearted and concerned with me being knowledgeable about everything!
After a few failed drug therapy combinations I was put on Humira. My what a miracle drug that is! At first I had to get past the fact that I was going to have to start giving myself a shot. When I got past that my stomach immediately started to have relief and NO MORE DIARRHEA! Goodbye embarrassment, hello new life! This journey up until that point had been amazing.
In my next blog I will be explaining what has happened over the course of the past year. I have really been put through the ringer with 5 hospitalizations, 2 surgeries, and a lot of time away from my family. I hope this wasn't information overload, if you are having stomach issues please get them checked out sooner rather than later! I wish I would have realized I needed better help before it got worse! I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and hope it helps someone out there!
-Murphi
