Not What I Imagined

Reality: something that is commonly different than what I've imagined.  The reality of the world of adulthood was just that way.  I had imagined freedom to do what I wanted to do at the time I wanted to do it.  I had imagined freedom to spend money like I wanted because now I had a little more to spend.  I had imagined just that general freedom of choice.  I know I'm not the only one here.  Right??

Now there is some reality to these imaginings.  I liked doing what I wanted at my chosen time like staying up late, but it was rough when I needed to get up early for work in the morning.  I would tempt fate sometimes and eat poorly and consuming foods that my Crohn's Disease didn't like. And that would cause me pain.  I spent my money like I wanted: after all the deductions were taken out and after bills were paid and after I worked a 12 hour shift on my feet for several shifts in a week.  Yea, that was fun initially maybe.  But money vanishes quickly.  And that's no fun.

A big choice I made was choosing nursing as an occupation.  I finally found something to spend my time doing during my working years.  Everything was going great.  I was the typical new graduate: eager to use my training and build on my skills, ready to be successful.  But even in a job that I imagined to be low on the stress level as far as nursing jobs go, I found my reality to still be stressed over work, anxious of what-ifs, doubtful of my abilities.

That's probably typical of most new graduates and employees as well.  As time goes on, things get better as you gain more experience and more confidence.  As I learned my job and my role as a nurse, things did get better.

What couldn't seem to get better in my life was what seemed to take over my life-Crohn's Disease.  The active disease would continue to rear its ugly head.  Here I am trying to be an adult, stand on my own two feet, help in the care of people whose families expected their family member(s) to be cared for with efficiency, and I couldn't stay well.  The stomach pains (from any food or drink consumed), bloody diarrhea, and quick weight loss were present yet again.

It's as if stress had some impact on whether I'd have a flare-up or not.  I don't recall being stressed to a great degree in nursing school  Although it was hard.  The N-CLEX may have been the most stressful part.  But with the starting of a new job (my dream job and my first as an adult) and realizing that it wasn't my dream and thus starting another new job within a short period of time caused me much stress, worry, and anxiety.  I like consistency, routine, and knowing what's coming (sometimes).  This was a lot of none of those things, and my own self doubts and personal pressure added to this.

There is no known cause of Crohn's Disease as of yet (although random people like to throw out ideas of the cause is and what we who suffer from it should be doing so we won't be sick).  And I am in no way saying that this is what caused my illness.  It's only that stress build up seemed to be a precursor to flare-ups for me.

I had taken all available types of medications used in the treatment of Crohn's Disease at that time.  There were other named medications out there, but they were comparable to the medications I had already tried.  Trying these other medications would have been useless.

We went to my gastroenterologist's office expecting the same news we were accustomed to hearing: start on prednisone (at a massive dose and taper down according to instructions) and here's the next
medication for you to try.  Instead, we got the sobering news I just mentioned.  There were no more medications to try that I haven't already tried in a comparable brand.  Basically, if those didn't work, there's no reason these others will.

My doctor then brought up the word SURGERY.  This meant the removal of my large intestine, my small intestine would be brought to my abdominal wall, and I would be wearing an ostomy bag on my side that would collect stool that would need to be emptied from the bag periodically throughout the day instead of eliminating waste like the average human being does.  Sounds terrible right?  Now months, years prior to this time, that was a bad, horrid, don't-say-that-I'm-not-doing-that-ever! kind of word.  Here, the surgery word was still bad to hear, but I remember at one point, on my Crohn's roller coaster ride that never seemed to end,  just sitting on the side of my bed, tears rolling down my face, my parents at my side, and asking them, "Why me? Why am I having to go through this?"    And now here I was with a choice, a life altering decision I had to make.