for what it's worth

 I don't feel brave. Not at all. People are always telling me how brave I am in dealing with all this IBD/Crohn's crap. It's not that I'm brave, I just don't have a choice. I am alive and until God decides differently I will push through this misery to be the best I can, to make the most of each day. By definition, I guess you could use the term brave loosely. I know I face pain and "unpleasant conditions" everyday and this is most likely the outlook for every single day in the near future but I don't feel brave  when I get up in the morning. I feel tired. I feel heavy. I feel determined but not brave. Determined to make it through today. Determined to keep my mind in check. Determined to move forward but not brave. Mostly I feel afraid. Afraid I won't be able to control the pain. Afraid the meds won't work to control the disease. I feel afraid because there is no cure for Crohn's and so I won't look too far ahead for fe

My cousin emailed me a couple of weeks ago challenging me to participate in April's  A to Z Blog Challenge . I like it but I'm not always regular with my blogging. I blog for fun and stress relief so putting a deadline or strict timeline parameters on me takes the fun and most importantly, the therapeutic release away from it. I will lose interest super fast and begin to stress over it which totally defeats the purpose of why I blog.  I decided to follow the guidelines on my own time instead and even though it's March 25th,  I'm doing my 1st post in my own A-Z Challenge. A is for Acceptance January 29, 2015: official Crohn's disease diagnosis. Week 8 as a Crohnie: Anger slowly being replaced with acceptance. I know I really don't have a choice in the matter of accepting the fact that I have Crohn's and staying angry will be very destructive in the long run. Yes, it's natural to be upset, it's part of the grieving process after all. The proc

Hello Prednisone. I wish I could say I was happy to see you again. I really thought you were gone from my life for good. December 18, 2014 is the date of my twisted bowel surgery. January 30, 2015 is the release date of my last (of 4) hospital stays. March 10, 2015 is the date I went to see my GI because I needed a 3rd refill of Hydrocodone 10-325. I am still having a lot of pain and I guess not all of it is surgery related, it's Crohn's related. I am averaging 2-4 pills a day plus 1-3 doses of Bentyl, an antispasmodic for the digestive system.  I was taking Entocort, a steroid designed specifically for the gut that doesn't have the typical steroid side effects like moon face, roid rage and weight gain but it just wasn't up to the task of my stubborn gut I guess. Doc decided I need a low dosage of Prednisone for a month or so and prescribed 10mg daily. As he examined me, he listed all the benefits of prednisone for a few weeks: quicker healing, pain management, gettin