I an attempt to enlighten everyone who has questions about my health I've decided to put up a few posts that will give everyone a quick overview. Lots of you know that I have been sick for the last three years. This last year was especially bad as I ended up going through 2 surgeries. Here's a quick breakdown of what happened. About 3 years ago I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis which is basically an inflammation of the colon with ulcers and junk inside. Unfortunately it's a disease that is uncurable. If you know anyone who has this disease then you'll know it's about as fun as sliding down a sandpaper slide with no pants on. Actually, the Doc described this disease to me as having a large intestine (colon) that somebosy has rubbed with sandpaper. So that analogy is actually quite literal. It's a bloody, energy-robbing mess....20 times a day. The good news was that the symptoms could be treated and most people can live with this for their entire lives without being too affected by it. So, at this point I was just hoping I could get some drugs and life would be good again.
My gastrointestinal doctor put me on a drug called Asacol first thing. My symptoms started to go away immediately. I felt pretty good for about 6 months and I was only going to the bathroom about 3-4 times a day (complared to 15-20). About that time things started to decline. This time the Doc gave me Colazal. This helped a little bit, but not much so the Doc put me back on Asacol again so I was taking both drugs. Things improved a bit more, but after a few months things went downhill again. For some reason my body just did not want to respond to the drugs anymore. After 100's of blood tests and multiple colonoscopy's (yeah, cameras in places cameras shouldn't be) the Doc was sure of my ulcerative colitis and could only perform these tests to make sure I was going to keel over.
So, now the Doc puts me on Prednasone which is used to treat all kinds of stuff. I got better, but had all kinds of side effects - headaches, acne, oily skin, shortness of breath. But those were all better than dealing with the disease itself. Since Prednasone is a steroid it can only be used for short periods of time so I was back to the Asacol after a few months. This time the Asacol really didn't do much of anything except empty my wallet. $200-$300/month for drugs is more than anybody wants to pay. The Asacol worked just well enough to make life tolerable, relatively speaking. So, really this disease was taking control of my life. One plus though, I can tell you where the nearest bathroom is anywhere in Utah county!
The next year or so was up-and-down. Up being the days where I had some control over my bowels and down being the days when my bowels had control of me. Having diarrhea for 3 years straight and going to the bathroom 15 times a day will take it's toll on anybody. There's no worse feeling than being stuck with no control. Driving in the car was a dreaded task that I avoided if at all possible. At this point in when I started losing so much blood in my stool that I had to start getting blood transfusions. In the olden day I would have just bled to death very slowly so you can imagine how thankful I am that I live in a time when medicine and technology is top notch.
The next 8 months saw multiple blood transfusions which each one coming a bit sooner than the last. The Asacol was pretty much doing squat at this point and we started looking into other treatments. we tried all kinds of stuff from natural herbal healing and aromatherapy massages to Xango juice and Kangen water. I've never been one to believe that any of these things would grant the miracle that so many swear by....and I was right. Some of it was tasty and some of it felt good, but my health stayed the same.
My doc dedided to put me on a medication called Remicade. I had read a lot about it and talked to my Doctor about it a few times. He was reluctant to put meon it because it is a last resort and there's no going back to anything else once you start treatment. The treatments for Remicade were 1st treatment, 2 weeks later you get treatment number 2, 6 weeks later treatment number 3 and then every 8 weeks after that for ongoing treatment. At $6000 a pop this was not a cheap treatment, but after talking with Erika we decided that if would make me better then it would be worth every penny. Luckily our insurance would help out and make it bearable.
So I started Remicade. It's an intravenous medication and takes about 2 hours per dose. After the first dose (and a blood transfusion the next day) i was starting to feel like things might get better. 2 weeks later I went in for dose number 2. I didn't notice much of a difference, but the Doctors said it could take a month for my body to respond. After a few weeks there was no improvbement. When I went in for dose #3 I had lost a lot of faith in how well Remicade was going to work and figured that this dose would make or break the deal. If my health didn't start improving soon then it was time for more drastic measures. The only thing that could completely get rid of my disease would be to physically take it out of my body, infected body organ included.
Since Remicade did not help at all my Doctor sent me to see a surgeon. At this point going under the knife was my only hope at getting rid of this infernal pestering in my bowels and hope to have a normal life again.
So, IN A NUTSHELL that's the story of my life for the last 3 years. My condition was much more severe than what we hoped it would be and my body didn't respond to treatment like we had hoped, but in October 2007 when I met with my surgeon I gained a renewed hope. At this point I'm honestly sick of writing about it so I will write about my actual surgeries another time. Perhaps tomorrow. for now, here's a few before and after pics to see how much weight I've lost! You can click on the images to view larger pics.
October 2007 and October 2006
This diet was killing me!
I'm Mexican, not Ethiopian...really!
