Adventures with a Rebellious Colon: My Story: The Saga Part 2

When I last left off, I was well into my first semester in college with Ulcerative Colitis, the fall of 2009. I was on the pill Lialda, used to treat mild to moderate UC, and I was in denial. To some extent, it is impossible to live with a chronic disease like UC without being in denial, but as with all things, moderation is essential.

Although we usually think of medications as something that make us feel better, I have learned that they can be tricky and their side effects can even outweigh their benefits. After months of terrible morning nausea, I got fed up and called my doctor and demanded some pills immediately (gangsta style, of course). He called something into CVS, I picked it up and took one the next morning. It didn’t do much so I took another one. The bottle mentioned possible drowsiness, but I didn’t pay much attention because benadryl doesn’t even make me drowsy. Well, this nausea medication made me VERY drowsy. I didn’t know what was happening to me when I started falling asleep in my afternoon classes and stopped making sense. I ended up on a bench outside my dorm and luckily my roommate found me. She scolded a guy who was deeply amused by my state but not doing much to help me (you know who you are) and took me home. I then slept for 24 hours. I did some research and found out that nausea and sleep are closely related in the brain and almost all nausea medications cause significant drowsiness. Last fall my doctor in California finally gave me a nausea medication used for chemotherapy that doesn’t cause drowsiness. Don’t ask me why it took a year for doctors to give it to me!

Because Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune disease, symptoms can reach well beyond the typical issues (that you would prefer to not think about) associated with the digestive tract. As the fall semester neared its end, I started to have pains in my left side below my rib cage. At first it was mild and just annoying but it soon progressed to a completely consuming pain that just made me pass out because I couldn’t cope with being awake. My roommate took me to the ER and I was given some narcotics diagnosed with costochondritis, a loose term for chest pains that mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. Thankfully it eventually went away with time and (unfortunately) suffering. I later found out that costochondritis is linked to autoimmune diseases…and surprise, I got it again eight months later! While it wasn’t a huge deal and the pain didn't compare to UC pain, it was just another example of the vast effects an autoimmune disease can have. The worst aspect about it was that I didn’t know what was wrong with me or when it would stop. The second time around, I knew it would eventually go away so I just waited it out.

My eating issues continued. For days at a time I didn't eat and just drank protein shakes because I couldn't stand food. It was a terrible thing but when food is literally a poison and you have no appetite, there's not much incentive to dig in.

Needless to say, when finals were over I was a complete mess. At home I was able to recover from a UC flare-up caused by the stress of finals, costrochondritis and a sinus infection (to top it off). That winter break I was actually in great health UC-wise. I was able to go on some hikes that I barely even thought twice about, which shows how we take our health for granted as soon as our bodies are able to forget the trauma of pain. I can only hope that once I am better I can treat every day without pain as a day given back to me after struggling for so long.

I was still nowhere near remission as I went back to school for the spring semester of 2010. I was in little pain, however, which makes a big difference for how functional I could be and my nausea improved. I lived in the middle of campus so I just went back to my room between every class and rested frequently. I went to the bathroom about 10 times a day but I just adapted to it. I did my best to ignore cramps and spasms because I didn't really have a choice. Most people didn’t even know I was sick at all, much less how sick I actually was. In March and April I had very few symptoms and I began to hope that I had finally entered into long-awaited remission. I traveled to New York and Providence and walked all day for days. Just to give you an idea of what a big deal that was, later that year I got so sick that I couldn’t even walk one block. It’s all relative!