A Game Of Crohn's

I don’t need to warn you that this post is about to be real, not with “Horrific” in the title, do I? We'll break out the caution tape, just in case I’m really thankful that I live in today’s medical environment, because as terrible as some things may be right now, they were downright horrific. And not all that long ago, really. Lobotomies may have fallen out of favor in the 1950s, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t 40,000 of those “procedures” performed, and from what I can collect without anaesthesia . Do you know how a lobotomy is executed? Essentially an ice pick is stuck through your eye socket, and your frontal cortex is “scrambled”. But I’ll do a whole different blog post about what they did to people with mental problems in the future. Before I begin, let’s just take a look at an old hypodermic needle. The syringe as we know it was essentially created by Dr. Alexander Wood in the 19th century. I’m not sure on the dates of when these were actually use

I don’t mean to brag, y’all, but I am totally in love. With a mortician. That I see on YouTube. So it’s kind of a one-sided thing at this point. It'll remain one-sided. S'ok. *Swoon* Her name is Caitlin Doughty. She’s amazeballs. I’m in love with pretty much every aspect of her that I’ve seen. I agree with her stand on green burials. She’s educated me on so much, and changed my mind about a lot of things that have to do with the funeral industry (and it is - very much - an industry that is milking you for billions, with a B, each year). I mean, why wouldn’t I want to wash the body of my mother after (God forbid) she passes? How many times has she washed MY body? Why would I want to leave her in the hands of strangers? All fantastic questions that I had never thought of until I watched her channel. But I’m not here to debate any of that with anyone. It’s personal choice, but she makes brilliant points. (I’ll link to her YouTube channel at the bottom, as w

I knew that she was a girl. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me, I could hear her voice. She already had a name, Lila Grace, named - in part - after her amazing cousin, Grace Ann. And I knew, the second I saw a pink spot of blood, that I had lost her. Just writing that sentence, even now, even six years later, brings me to tears. I don’t know what kind of mother I would have been to little Lila, being that I went through my own mini hell in the past six years. I don’t know why she was taken from me, but I’ve been through the whole list - her body was broken, her father and I aren’t together anymore and what kind of life would that have been for her?, something wasn’t right, *I* am not the best genetic contributor, etc, etc, ad nauseum . It’s pointless to wonder and to beat myself up, but guess what? I do it endlessly. It’s my fault and I killed my baby. With crohn’s. That was my daughter’s gift. Awareness. It's about to get real, y'all. I knew that whateve

I stopped publishing about coming off of oxycodone because of something that I saw on facebook - took personally - and felt shamed. I don’t really want to go too much into it now, because that’s not really the focus of this entry, but I’m still shocked by who the secret jerks are. via GIPHY That’s all I’ll say about that. Anyway - I had my six month check-up for my stem-cell transplant! For a clear re-cap, since one hasn’t been provided; after the stem-cell coated plug placement, I ended up re-fistulizing not once, but twice, which resulted in many emergency trips to Rochester by myself in screaming pain, and two extra surgeries. As I’ve said, I still have an open tract, and I’m being treated bi-weekly with silver nitrate (which chemically burns the tissue, theoretically getting it to fuse together). It hurts intensely (have someone put out a cigarette directly on your bum), and causes bleeding and weeping for days afterwards. Pictured: Hell sticks All

Oh, this is always the fun part. I hope the sarcasm is loud and clear. As I’ve said multiple times, due to sensitivities that cause my guts to bleed, I can’t really take anything for my pain other than Tylenol and percocet/oxycodone. I mean, they’ve given me much, MUCH stronger stuff during surgeries/stays in the hospital, but that’s what I come home with. I’ve been on some form of oxycodone since October. This is the third time in my life that I have had to come off of this drug. All three times I was on the drug more or less six months before everything was under control/I realized I was using it for emotional pain as well/I realized that I was going through withdrawal symptoms when I didn’t medicate on a schedule. I would be sitting here on my bed, running a low-grade fever, nose running uncontrollably, completely covered with goosebumps...before the slow, dawning realization that I *wasn’t* actually experiencing the flu, I was experiencing withdrawal. It doesn't matt