The Breaking of a Christmas Tradition
December 1st. When things really took a turn for the worst.
I had been on the Adalimumab injections since the end of July and in that time, upon reflection, it felt like my body was slowly shutting down. I went through phases where I couldn’t eat anything and I felt so ridiculously nauseous, I thought the nausea was from not being able to eat but forcing food down me made it worse and it felt like my stomach was on a constant rollercoaster – it was a sensation I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I had zero energy and the only place I felt truly comfortable was laying on my stomach on my bed popping buscopan and anti-sickness medication. I still tried my hardest to live my life, my mam and I would go out, but I’d often find myself needing to rush home to once again lay on my stomach and ensure I was close to a toilet.
The toilet situation wasn’t great either. I would often find myself in absolute agony and crying on the toilet for hours at the time, and this would sometimes strike when I was out and about, and I’d find myself rushing to the disabled toilet in a random Tesco or McDonald’s sitting there praying the pain would end – the embarrassment was real and I was always worried that people would notice how long I’d been in the toilet and it would completely ruin any day I was having outdoors. This continued through the autumn months and I could feel myself feeling progressively worse, I had severe pain in my lower right stomach and at one point I went to my GP because I was convinced I had endometriosis – looking back, I think I knew deep down that it was my Crohn’s but I was too utterly terrified to admit it to myself, and to the medical professionals involved in my health, because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Turns out, my body was going to tell me what happens next.
December 1st, without fail, is the day that my mam and I reserve to put all our Christmas decorations up and has been since I can remember. It’s one of my favourite traditions and we have such fun doing it – last year I had also decided I wanted a themed tree so had already been buying new decorations to help with my vision, thus, I was extremely excited this year. Unfortunately, I woke up on December 1st with the worst stomach pain I have ever been in, I couldn’t move, breathing was a struggle, I was ridiculously thirsty, and I was scared. I thought I’d try and ride it out with painkillers, buscopan and a heat pad but it was no use and instead I was getting worse – it was so bad that whatever fear I was feeling was completely erased by the pain and forced me to ask my brother to take me to A&E. Amazingly, I was still under the impression that they’d be able to sort me out and I could go home to put the Christmas tree up but uh, this definitely wasn’t the case and I still impress myself with my level of delusion sometimes, even today.
The trip to A&E led to an eight day stay in ICU, my first ever experience in an intensive care unit and I was terrified. I can’t really remember much of this hospital stay but initially I was kept in A&E for a CT scan and it was an awful experience, I remember waking up in the night needing to use the toilet and not being able to reach my call bell – I found myself stretching so hard that I’m pretty sure I felt the moment my bowel packed in, the pain was horrific and I was dry heaving from how much it hurt. Unfortunately, the A&E nurse didn’t believe me, but I found myself in ICU when I woke up, because my CT scan was prior to this horrid pain I don’t actually think they caught what happened and at the point of my CT scan, my bowel was just terribly inflamed and I had sepsis. Thus began an eight-day run of antibiotics, steroids and me being me, begging to go home. I was terrified I was going to be stuck in hospital over Christmas and this is why hindsight is a wonderful thing, because actually, hospital is the only place I should’ve been.
