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So here i am now on night 2 in the hospital on base. I was really dehydrated and i fell n hit my head. So they did a cat scan on me to see if i had any bleeding. I've been on IVs for 2 days straight. they keeep changing my pain medicine tho. My friend Shawn and my Sponsor Kelley came and saw me today. It made me feel good to have the people i care about around me. I've been in a wheel chir because i can't get around on my own. i haven't eaten in days. I need a ciggerette! My command hasnt really come to see me a tall other than my msgt and my gunney. i'm tired of being sick. i want to hold down foods. im on a liquid diet and yet i still throw up. its been a bad couple of days.
-Olivia
YIKES. That all sounds terrible. I can see why you are having a hissy fit. I hope everything starts improving very soon. Will they feed you intervenously if you can't keep anything down right now?
Get well soon.
Love,
DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor and don't play one on TV.
So sorry to hear you are doing so badly and hate that you feel so alone. Please keep with the IVs and hopefully your will be able to get and keep some food in your system. My prayers are with you for a good recovery.
Maggie
Maggie Scarpone
___________________
Resident Birder - I live to bird and enjoy life!
Sorry to hear that you're having such a rough time. Dehydration can really cause serious problems, and unfortunately, it's a constant threat, with this disease, if we don't do everything we can, to avoid it. Once your electrolytes are restored to a better balance, and your GI system settles down a bit, you should be able to handle solid food again, and start getting your strength and energy back. Those IVs are aggravating, but they're lifelines, when you need them.
Hang in there - no one is tougher than a Marine, you know, and we're all sending our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Thank you for your kind words.Today i was able to hold down more fluids. the hospital has a diet nutritionist coming to speak wih me today too. I don't know how many times ive had to correct the docs because they all want to give me ibuprofen!!! any they get angry when i tell them no! so i told them my GI said no! ive been constipated again but instead of my butt being on fire my mouth is from vomit. my IV is my lifeline you are right Tex! i cant even tell you how many liters ive gone through since ive been here. They are talking about hooking me up with an IV that comes home with me. They say i can leave the iv spot in my arm up to 6 months. i think its a good idea because i keep coming to the ER for dehydation. I just dont get it sometimes because im always drinking water and gatorade! Im still very weak. i can't walk to the bathroom on my own yet. so i may go home in a wheel chair. it has never been this bad before. i'm tired of being sick. It took them 2 days to give me a nicoteine patch! i was deing without a cig! they said they are gonna try to send me home today because id be more comfy in my own bed. im so thankful i have my MC family. These docs have no idea whatis wrong. I love you all!
-Olivia
Dear Olivia, I am so sorry to read you are in hospital and you are doing so bad. And sorry to hear your doctors don't have a clue how to thread you. That ibuprofen can cause or induce MC must be basic knowledge for a GI doc!! I don't understand 100% of what you are writing, probably because I am Dutch. For example what on earth is IV?
I can understand very very well you are so tired of being sick. But just take your time now for being ill. Recovery is a battle. In my philosophy allowing yourself just be sick, that it is okay to be ill and accepting that there is something really wrong with your body is also part of the recovery. Just take a break and a deep breath. Ly down, let other people look after you and relax for a while. That is just all you can do at the moment.
If I understand your messages well this is not the first time, this happens to you (being in hospital because you are dehydrated) and going from d to c and back. To me it sounds like (please correct me if I am wrong) you are in a vicious circle. At the moment with your thing in your arm (is it in English called an infusion?) and the doctor's plan leaving, there is not much you can do at the moment or go anywhere. Maybe you can use this time to figure out (with help of the people here) what the best way is to treat your MC. In most cases, doctors and hospitals are good for getting a diagnoses and suppliers of the right medication (even some case you have to tell them what the best ones are for this disease) and of course also treat other complications like in your case now the dehydration.
But to really recover and achieve remission, you have to find out yourself what works best for you. In most cases it is diet whether with or without medication. It is not a simple and quite a radical lifestyle change. That is how experienced it. But it makes so much difference in how you feel. Not that the D is immediately gone (or the C), but it can give you less gut pain. To be honest in the beginning I was a bit skeptical about it. But being on a very strict diet for four months now I start so see differences. My situation was never as bad as yours, but I know how it feels just be sent home with diagnoses (my first reaction was colla...what???) and bag of horrible pills (my "rotpillen" in Dutch) and what next...
It takes time, some trial and error, but as others have said to me, you will get better, you will be out there running again, going out, having fun, believe you will!!!
I wish you all the best and hope you feel much better soon
harma
You us here, for help for information, for your questions. All of us are here to help you.
You do so well we forget English is not your first language!! You have understood correctly.
IV is a short way of saying Intra Venous. (Into Vein) This is when they put a needle in you and put saline (salt water) and maybe medicines straight into your blood stream. This is the best way to treat a dehydration crisis, but you are right, it makes moving around and doing things very difficult.
Olivia,
how will you cope at home when you are still weak and in a wheelchair? You don't have to go home till you are well enough to deal with it all - you will need someone there to make sure you get lots of fluids etc, and help clean up. Maybe the hospital staff will let your take your chair outside where you can have a ciggie (cigarette) and that will make being in there feel better. I worry that you might deteriorate again quickly if you leave the hospital too soon.
Oh, and you are doing so well in resisting the doctors trying to give you wrong drugs. That takes energy and determination, and it is fantastic that you still have that when you are down. No wonder you are a Marine.
I've been away from this site because of work, but I have been monitoring all new posts and have read all your posts and it is heartbreaking to read what you are going through.
You have gotten good advice here, but I would just like to say that from what I know of MC, it is a progressive disease. To be dx with it at your age is rare, which means that your body has been pretty ravaged already.
I know you are in a situation where weakness is not an option, you are a Marine, you are legendarily supposed to be a superhuman. Well, nobody is a superhuman. You are a young woman who has every right to be healthy and survive as a human being. If you were not a Marine you would likely be living a civilian life doing something to survive w/o the added pressure of being a Marine.
This is about YOU and YOUR survival, and you entered into an agreement to serve your country w/o knowing that you had all of the obvious health issues you DO have. This is not a failure on your part, this is not what you chose to have happen, you wanted to be able to be a Marine. The reality is that you very likely can never deploy under these conditions and this is not your fault. THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT. I know this is not how you would ever have wanted your career to go, but, Olivia, you are just who and what and where you are and if your body cannot take the trauma of what being a Marine entails, then you need to forgive yourself for being imperfect and focus on being a wife and a person who deserves to live.
It just breaks my heart to think that you may feel that this is a personal failure.
Connie
Resolved MC symptoms successfully w/L-Glutamine, Probiotics and Vitamins, GF since 8/'09. DX w/MC 10/'09.
I am hoping that you can take this time to rest and recover. Your body has been under stress for a long time, it will take a while to heal, and some motherly type advice (even though i am not a mother) so maybe some Aunty Gabes advice, dont rush it, you need to give your body the time it needs to heal, figure out foods and diet, and meds and treatments that are going to give you good control and eliminate the risk of being so sick again.
Gabes Ryan
"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned"
Dalai Lama
Good for you for speaking up and advocating for your own health and well being! You're right, the doctors often don't know what they're doing. Hope the corpsman are treating you well.
Maybe you will be able to speak to a nutritionist/dietician that can give you some good advice.
Take care of yourself, and try not to worry about everything else. I know, much easier said than done. As frustrating and overwhelming as this disease is, the only way I can get by at times is to believe that this happened to me for a reason. It's fate and it's one thing I can't control. I have stopped asking "Why me?".
Wish I lived closer to you because I know how it sucks to be in the military and not have family or long time friends around. Hope you have a support system and someone who can check in on you when you do go home. Getting out of the hospital and back into your own place will probably help you feel better fairly quickly.
Visit the Microscopic Colitis Foundation Website
I was really dehydrated and i fell n hit my head. So they did a cat scan on me to see if i had any bleeding. I've been on IVs for 2 days straight. they keeep changing my pain medicine tho. My friend Shawn and my Sponsor Kelley came and saw me today. It made me feel good to have the people i care about around me. I've been in a wheel chir because i can't get around on my own. i haven't eaten in days. I need a ciggerette! My command hasnt really come to see me a tall other than my msgt and my gunney. i'm tired of being sick. i want to hold down foods. im on a liquid diet and yet i still throw up. its been a bad couple of days.
