GI Stuff, youth vs. age

When I was still in high school, I had some pretty severe "issues" with my digestive system. Sometimes, I'd get weak and chilled, and I was not at all tolerant to lights, bright colors (or visual chaos of any kind), odors, and sounds. It was kind of like hypoglycemia and a panic attack at once. I fainted at school one time, and at home once.

It got debilitating enough that my mom took me to the doctor she trusted most: an elder from our church (he was actually a medical doctor; this wasn't religious treatment). He thought that putting me on the birth control pill might alleviate these symptoms, as he believed it to be tied to hormones. At that age, my periods are randomly-occurring, and I had intense pain before and during that part of my cycle.

Humiliation at having a parent and church elder put me on The Pill aside, that actually did help quite a bit. For the first time since menarche, I had a regular cycle, and though I still had severe cramps, the anemia and fainting and sensitivity to any stimuli was all but gone.

Over the years, things have kind of settled down. Periods did still kick my butt before I had D. I had a female boss tell me, "Everyone who works here is a woman. If everyone needed a day off of work per month, we'd never get anything done." As I've aged, it's gotten better. I still have to take an Aleve every once in a while, but it could be worse. (Could also be better. I'm looking at you, menopause. Plz come for me.)

Sunday night (two days ago), my lower abdomen started hurting. It felt like bloating, so I went to bed expecting to wake up Monday with it having resolved itself.

It did not. I walked as usual, and it didn't work itself out then, either. I'd ordered some Gas-X but that didn't seem to make a difference, either. The pain started to be sharper, especially on the left side. But it kind of ran across the top of my FUPA. At first, I thought it might be appendicitis, but that's on the right side. I wondered about something to do with ovaries, but found out today that if a cyst ruptures, it's going to hurt mid-cycle, not right now.

Today, I went to the walk-in clinic and, after ruling out at UTI, the doctor sent me for a CT scan. Apparently two quadrants in my colon are "inflamed." I'm supposed to go see a gastroenterologist ASAP, but they're all booked out through September, so the triage nurse scheduler is trying to get me in within the next week.

The doctor gave me some medicine for the pain, and told me to eat a bland diet until we can figure out what's going on. I think maybe the medicine has kicked in a bit, or I'm experiencing the placebo effect. I sincerely do not care which is the case. It's still sore, but not stabby at the moment.

**Now it's the following day.

I walked my normal walk this morning; things I've read about colitis say it's good to get some brisk but not too impactful exercise, and it seems like walking is the perfect thing to do.

Orange sunrise on my walk.

I didn't hear back from a GI yesterday; we'll see what happens today.

It's interesting... when I was 16 years old and doubled over with abdominal pain, my only thought was, "Make this stop."

Now that I'm 48 (for another month and some change), my thoughts are, "Make this stop, and I don't have time for protracted medical procedures, so just give me a pill, please." And also, "My kid is too young for me to die, so we can't have that." 

I'm not actually too worried about a morbid outcome, but I do know that if it turns out I have Crohn's disease (and I don't think I have enough symptoms for that to be the case, but I'm not a doctor), in a decade or so I'd have to start being carefully screened for cancer. So I did the head math really quickly and decided that if this ends up being serious, 8-10 years from now is a more convenient time to keel over than right now.

We're about to get a puppy, for goodness sakes! Covid took our big vacation last year; my stupid colon can't mess this up, all right? Can we just agree on that?