Although things looked pretty grim when I headed to the hospital, my daily quality of life turned around when I made that decision. The secret to getting seen quickly is to mention some chest pain (or paint some fake blood all over your head). I had a relatively short stay in the ER, where the doctors gave me morphine, liters of water and put me back on a high dose of the corticosteroid prednisone. One of the reasons my GI told me over and over to check in to the hospital was that he suspected I was very dehydrated - just do the math with how many bathroom trips I was making a day. When I was still thirsty after receiving two liters of water through an IV in the time span of one hour, my ER doctor raised his eyebrows and said, “You are VERY dehydrated.” He decided that the infusions of Remicade just weren't working and agreed with Dr. Hosseini that I "would not make it" (I still don't know what that meant) until the immunosuppressant pill Azathioprine might kick in a few months later. You might be wondering why not combine Remicade, Azathioprine and Prednisone. Since they are all heavy-duty immunosuppressants, the risk of life-threatening infection goes through the roof if all three are combined. You might also be wondering why my doctor didn’t take me off Remicade sooner and switch me to Prednisone. The problem was that I had responded a little to Remicade and we all hoped that I would improve after more infusions. Unfortunately, I simply couldn’t make it through the waiting period. In addition to Ulcerative Colitis that was out of control, the ER doctor thought that I might have had a stomach ulcer that went undiagnosed for months. Since my stomach always hurt, I didn’t think that it hurting more than usual was significant.
My hospital stay was entertaining as there were guards stationed everywhere. My dad did some strategic eavesdropping and discovered that there were some psychotic patients. I could have told him that! They were being strapped to their beds and screaming! Anyway, that provided a welcome distraction. Before I left, I convinced the doctors to give me an extra dose of morphine and I felt absolutely amazing. Sometimes people ask me what morphine is like and the best adjective I could use to describe it is "nice." Although the way it makes you drift in and out of awareness is a little unsettling, it's a wonderful break from the stress of physical pain. When I arrived home, the two British exchange students who live with my parents asked me how I was - I do not remember this, but this is what they tell me. I apparently answered, "I'm on morphine!" as if that would mean something to them.
The next day I felt exponentially better. I started eating again and I was happy. Although I couldn’t going back to DC because there wasn’t enough time left in the semester for an internship, I called my congressional internship from the summer and made an arrangement to come back in a couple days per week. They apologize a couple times when they gave me boring tasks like filing, but all I could tell them was that I was so thankful not to be at home in bed that I would find pretty much anything, even filing, intellectually stimulating. Plus, instead of being one solider in an army of interns, I was the only intern on the days I went in. I got to know the staffers really well and I got to meet with some interesting constituents and interest groups.
The other days of the week I went to the doctor or the lab to get tests done. When I first started taking azathioprine, I had to get tests done at least once a week to make sure that my liver, iron levels and blood cell count were satisfactory. I got tested for the bacteria responsible for 50% of stomach ulcers but I didn’t have it. The pain between my ribs started to come back and my doctor put me on a stomach ulcer medication that made me feel better and that I still take, eight months later. To this day, when I stop taking it the pain comes back.
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