A Series of (Un)fortunate Events: Chapter 18: Change in Summer Plans!!

So, in Chapter 17 we left off....oh yeah...I turned in a stool sample on the spot.  Take that check-in, lady at the hospital.  How many of you can say that you can do THAT?!?!?

But anyways, like I said before, I was mentally very frustrated of going through the motions (and jumping through the continuous "doctor hoops") that I feel like I always have to poop jump through before we can get any answers...and they seem to be the same answer and protocol--you're having a flare-up, so go back on steroids.  And let me tell you, by the time I go to the doctor, my flare-ups are in full swing, so by the time I actually do the "lab work" (AKA stool samples), we usually still have to wait 1-2 days for the results.  That usually means 1-2 MORE days of being completely miserable, waiting for the plan of action.  So to put it in perspective, I did this stool sample on a Thursday, and I did not get my results back until Monday morning.  That meant I was miserable for the ENTIRE weekend without any answers or relief.  UGH!!!  [End pity party.  Sorry.  Had to get that out.]

So, when my nurse from the doctor's office finally calls me, I am fully expecting her to ask me to come in and do a visit with my doctor to talk about the plan of action.  Nope!  Instead, she tells me that I have C-Diff which I had never heard of.  I really didn't know much about it, but that I needed to get on antibiotics for it ASAP!!!!  She was emphatic about that.  They put me on an antibiotic called Flagyl, which was an extremely ROUGH antibiotic.  It made me completely nauseous, so now I was having diarrhea and had the dry heaves all day long.

They also put me on the BRAT diet again in order to not irritate my stomach....Great!  Toast, applesauce, and gatorade got old reeeeeeeeal fast since this was NOT my first rodeo.  It was awful. I took that stupid drug for 8 days and did not feel an ounce better.  By this point, I'm losing weight again, getting weaker, and just feeling more and more awful every single day.  I'm sure my mood and outlook were terrible!!  Because this medicine was so rough on my system, I almost felt like this was WORSE than a UC flare-up.  I was just so miserable and the medicine seemed to not be doing anything.

(By the way, during this time, MK started a new job (Thank you, Lord!!!!!), so he's working his hiney off and coming home to a sick wife...so NOT fun for him.  Thanks babe for taking care of me!  My mom came over just about every day to take care of me.  I watched more episodes than I can count of Food Network because if you can't fix it yourself, you might as well watch someone else...  Confession:  I also watched too many episodes of The Hills to count.  Wow. What a dumb show.  I watched every movie in our house, I watched all of my friend's movies she brought over (thanks Jessi!!!), and I rented a ton of movies from OnDemand.  All I could do was lay on the couch.  (At least I had a constant, cozy companion on the couch).  I think she can tell when I'm sick. Seriously--her demeanor around me changes.  It's bizarre.

Back to the story...So why didn't the antibiotic work and take away my symptoms?  The antibiotic did actually work!  It worked too well at killing the bacteria....the C-Diff caused an ulcerative colitis flare-up!!!!! It's kind of hard to explain how this can happen, but we all have good and bad bacteria in our colon.  Well, the Flagyl was supposed to kill the bad bacteria, but instead it killed ALL the bacteria in my colon, including the good, which caused my colon to become inflamed (which is essentially a UC flare-up).  Back to heavy steroids and Xanax we go for the second time in 2 months!!!!  AHHHHH!!!  My summer definitely did not turn out the way I had planned it out with trips to the pool and time with my niece and nephew, reading, relaxing, hanging out with family and friends.  Nope.  Not one bit.

 Seriously, if it weren't my own story, I wouldn't believe it.  How can this kind of stuff actually happen?  

1. I went from being "healthy" (ok somewhat) at the beginning of June
2.  Developed a sinus infection and took an antibiotic for it
3. The antibiotic messed up the bacteria (good and bad in my colon) and gave me C-Diff
4. C-Diff caused even more problems for my UC
5. UC flares up 
6. So, now July is halfway over, and I've been sick since the middle of June (a full month total).  

At this point, I definitely thought something needed to change in what we were doing to treat everything, and I know I alluded to that in the previous chapter, so I'll fill you in next time on what my doctor decided our next move would be!  

Through it all, I have to say that I have the best friends and family taking care of me.  They are truly Christ with skin on to me.  I can't say thank you enough to them.  I am just so incapable of doing anything when I'm this sick, so A BIG THANK YOU needs to go out to my friends and family! You know who you are!!!!!!!!
More to come!!!     

PS-I now HATE antibiotics. Can you blame me?