Faith Through the Journey

It’s April again, which means different things to different people. To some, it’s Income Tax time, some think spring, others think Easter, it was also my dad’s birthday month. However, for me it’s come to mean the “wonderful” experience of my annual colonoscopy. For those of you who only have to do this every 10 years, count your blessings! I began to think back on my many colonoscopies, the first of which I had in 1988. This was 14 years after my initial diagnosis with Crohn’s Disease, before which I had to undergo some other interesting tests. There was the ever-popular small bowel follow through, which required me to drink about a quart of barium each time. I’ve often thought I might glow in the dark after all the barium I’ve ingested over the years. Then there was the less-popular barium enema, which is just as awful as it sounds. The worst of all was the procotoscope, and I truly hope every one of these instruments of torture has been melted down and is now used in something useful to mankind, like weapons used to destroy ISIS!

Some years I’ve had to undergo more than one colonoscopy, depending on the amount of active Crohn’s Disease the last one showed. Unfortunately, there’s no way to look inside my colon. The year 1988 was also kind of the beginning of my ongoing struggle with Crohn’s. I had multiple surgeries, medications, procedures, phone consultations with my doctors on a regular basis, hospitalizations with bowel obstructions, all while trying to be a wife and mother to my three young children. It’s been a centerpiece of our family for too many years, something I would rather forget about but which always seemed to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune times.

In 2012, I went to Mayo Clinic for some further consultations with doctors there, trying to get any more insight into what we might do to try to get a better handle on living with this disease and the debilitating effects it was having on our everyday lives. After a few tests, the doctors determined that I would need to undergo surgery again, for the sixth time, to resolve the damage that had been done by the disease’s current activity in my digestive system. This time, however, they suggested that a regimen of medications be used after the surgery to prolong a remission of the disease that might give me relief for a number of years longer than just continuing on with no medications after this surgery.

We proceeded according to their instructions, returning to San Antonio, Texas, where I had surgery performed by the same surgeon who had done my previous five surgeries. I began the medications shortly after the surgery and was relatively healthy for a number of years afterward. Because the medications I was taking were immunosupressants, I began to develop some secondary infections. My gastroenterologist suggested that I might need to back off on one of the medications in order to counteract this problem. However, by last summer I was having problems again, and I ended up hospitalized with severe abdominal pain. A CT scan showed that Crohn’s Disease had flared up in my colon again, which was quite disappointing after having a number of years without it. The doctor put me right back on both medications, and thankfully, this time my colonoscopy showed a resolution of the disease and no further Crohn’s in my colon. I am VERY thankful to God for this, because I know He is the ultimate Healer. He can use doctors, medications, surgeries, or just His hand reaching down to touch someone, but it’s all in His hands.

Going forward, I know I have to do certain things that seem to be rather common sense, but which for me are the difference between getting sick and staying healthy. Because my immune system is compromised, I have to be careful to get flu shots and any other immunizations my doctors deem necessary. I also have to stay away from some things, like the shingles vaccine, because I could actually get shingles from it due to my lack of immunity. I also have to take my vitamins, eat well, exercise regularly, and rest before I’m exhausted. For me, I have to remember that these things are just as necessary for me to do as taking my medications, whether I can feel them working or not. I believe God has given me this information so that I can do what is necessary to stay healthy enough to enjoy the life He has given me–time with my husband, my now-adult children, my four beautiful grandchildren, singing in worship to Him, and just getting out of bed each day ready to do whatever He has for me that day.