I thought I would start out by giving you some background on Mr.Z and his lovely Crohn's. He was diagnosed with it back in 2005 after my pushing and pushing of him to go to the doctor. I happened to be in the middle of the GI portion of nursing school. I kept saying to myself,"Huh? Weird. That sounds like my honey!". So when he was diagnosed we thought we'd do some research on the whole thing. I read several books, bought probiotics and even tried changing his diet. Yeah, well FAT LOTTA GOOD THAT DID! Turns out he's at the complete crap hole end of the lovely spectrum and diet changes weren't going to do anything to help him out! After several months and many pounds being lost nothing was working and I couldn't convince him to go back to the doctor (he is a typical dude when it comes to that junk).
In the beginning, I didn't really understand the disease fully and thought that he was being over dramatic about his pain that he was going through (and this was before ANY surgery). I remember how much pain he was in the day that our son was born. He was awesome and held in how much it hurt as labor progressed and delivery was closer and how I was turning into CrazyGonnaDoNaturalLabor lady (yeah...nope that didn't work out!).
About a year later his symptoms just began to get worse and worse and the meds he was on just weren't working. He was losing weight at a crazy speed too. When we met he was over 300lbs. He's 6'6" so when he started to weight in around 200lbs I was getting seriously worried. He had no insurance and we knew nothing about this program the hospital provided for those who couldn't afford it. We planned on getting married any way, but when I learned the insurance I had would cover him at the moment of getting married we didn't wait any longer. I had really awesome insurance at the time!! I paid just over $300/mo for full medical & hospital stays didn't cost anymore than $100, regardless of how long you were inpatient. Three days later I sent him to the ER and he underwent emergency surgery and stayed there for the next three months!!!
When he finally came home the poor guy looked so pathetic. They got him addicted to dilaudid and dropped him like a hot potato once he was discharged in the pain management department. He barely weighed 175lbs! Those BMI calculators can kiss my you know what!! He looked horrible at that weight, nothing but skin and bones! I had to keep on him about turning while in bed and getting out of bed for fear of bed sores. He returned to the hospital once again for a temporary colostomy to give his colon a rest. Thankfully, it worked and was able to have it reversed.
Then it was on to maintenance. Seeing how he is allergic to sulpha, about a bazillion medications got erased from the possibility of being used. Slowly, but surely, those medicines all stopped working and he ended up in the hospital again for several weeks. Since then he's been on Remicaide and it stopped helping. Now he's on methotrexate and Humira and they barely work anymore.
He has several fistulas that have stayed open that cause him lots of pain and prevent him from living a normal life for a guy as young as he is.
So, as you can see this is enough junk for a person to go through. Especially, a young guy. He was in his early 20's when he was diagnosed and he's coming up on his 30th birthday this fall. He has gone through a lot and fights depression and anger from dealing with it.
I couldn't imagine what he feels. I can guarantee you that it has been no picnic for me either. This disease has caused quite a strain on our relationship, to say the least. I will definitely say that if we didn't have faith in Jesus and a church famiy, we would not have survived as long as we have.
I plan on being married to this man for the rest of my life. I guess that means I'm going to be married to the disease also. Watch out Crohn's!! You won't become a wedge between us anymore!
Us before Crohn's
Us June 2012
