I'm blogging 30 posts in 30 days for National Health Blog Post Month with
@wegohealth.
Join me: http://info.wegohealth.com/nhbpm2012
#NHBPM
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Prompt the first: "Why I write about my health"
Prompt the second: Write about the weirdest thing about your health
Way to get real personal, real fast random web prompts!
The reason I started this blog, almost a year ago (ahhh!), is that when I found out I had Crohn's I couldn't find any Crohn's blogs written by the newly diagnosed. All of the Crohn's blogs seemed to be written by, for lack of a better word, "lifers"-people who had been diagnosed as kids/teens and grew up with the disease as an established facet of their realities. I was diagnosed a month after my 30th birthday, and it was hard for me to relate. I didn't know anyone with Crohn's, and I felt like I wasn't yet a sophisticated Crohn's patient-I didn't know the lingo, the prognosis, or any fun tips/tricks (I guess I still don't know any fun tricks. My gastro has yet to teach me how to make balloon animals). I was so new at this-and I felt completely at sea. So, I figured that if I was searching for a blog written by someone who was new to Crohn's, other people might be too-and that's when the over sharing began.
Frankly, I didn't think I was going to follow through on the whole blog thing-it started out as a way to vent some frustrations and get all emo about my situation, but it's actually been a useful resource for helping me process some of the FEELINGS (so many feelings on this blog!) and complex decisions that arise because of this disease.
Fun times!
As for the second prompt-where to begin. I'm not sure there are "weird" things about my health-stressful things, gross things, disturbing things, sure, but weird? I have a problem with this term for two reasons. One, isn't calling something "weird" another way to call it abnormal, or different in a bad way? Because that pretty much applies to my entire experience with Crohn's. It's pretty weird that I go to the bathroom so much huh? It's weird how often I get tired or nauseous or gassy, right? CRAZY. Like I need another reminder that my digestive business, in all of its ulcerated glory, isn't normal. I don't think having Crohn's is weird, or makes me weird, or different-I think it just means I'm sick.
Two: if the prompt meant "weird" as in quirky, like cute/offbeat/unusual, I have only this to say: my colon isn't quirky, it's ANGRY.
However! In the breezy happy funtimes spirit in which I'm sure this prompt was intended, I will share a thought I had today. I was driving around comparing prices in a random area of cheap gas, and I kept looking at my gauge and mentally calculating how long I could go without filling up. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, how handy it would be to have such a gauge attached to my colon. I had another bad morning-I kept waking up last night because I was so nauseous, and this morning I did some agile sprinting to the bathroom. Every time, I kept thinking-ok-I'm done. I can go out and about and not worry about being near a bathroom. And then I would feel a gurgle, a twinge, a cramp-and start worrying all over again.
As much as you try to be intuitive about your symptoms and listen to your body, it's far from an exact science. Have you ever tried to communicate with your colon? Because that fu%$^er is not super communicative. There are a lot of mixed signals being tossed around. In the end, I did end up going out, and eating out, only to make a mad dash back to the bathroom as soon as I got home. It's so incredibly frustrating to try to plan my day around my fickle AAC. If only there was a gauge, a concrete way to know the status of your colon-empty, full, half a tank left....because I never really know for sure, and I don't like surprises.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again-nobody likes a surprising colon.
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