RETRO 10.24.2004

Hey dudes, here's the one I owe you - and after this I'll be all caught up till next Wednesday. And its a long retro fernpixel entry too. Um... I won't write anything else because this entry will already be long. This entry has the first time I found out about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and tried it out for the first time.

(originally written October 24, 2004)

Yesterday marks one entire year since I've been working at ______. I feel bad because I only planned on working there for only 3-5 months. I anticipated getting a real career much sooner. That day still hasn't arrived.

Technically, I haven't been working there for a whole year. My time off of for vacation and mostly sick days, totals to about 60 working days. In fact I have been home all week because my ulcerative colitis has gotten bad, no wait, the doctor said it became worse and now we are waiting on the biopsy results. It may have even graduated into Crohns Disease. That means that my small intestines may be effected now. Its been progressing so fast.

I have a new doctor and my aunt works for him. I remember his name because it sounds like an Italian bread.

My colonoscopy was on Wednesday. They made me drink one gallon of laxative the night before. Of course I didn't even finish half. Who can finish a gallon of laxative in 3 hours?! I lied and said I did only because I don't want to go through with it again and postpone the procedure. What did I do with the extra laxative? I dumped it into the neighbor's yard and threw the container in the recycling bin.

Anyway, my aunt assisted in the procedure. And when it was over they said that my intestines looked so raw they were afraid to see how far the damage was. My aunt even said that, "I've seen bad ones, but this might be the worst I've ever seen".

But what went wrong? In June-July I thought I was cured! I had normal stools. I was eating good. But now, I've had bloody D for ever a month!! Its incredibly painful.

My medication is 60 mg of prednisone. Its a steroid I wish I didn't have to take. There are so many side effects including dizziness and weight gain and "moon face". Moon face is when your face gets swollen. None of that has happened to me yet. I've only been on it for a few days.

I am also taking colazal. Its a mesameline that is an anti-flammatory. Side effects: abdominal pains, cramping and D. Diarrhea as one of the side effects... lucky me... If only I could just stop the diarrhea. Its annoying and embarrassing! How am I supposed to meet people this way? I can't even leave the house! I will go mad! I have no idea of what my dosage is. I believe it was something like 750mg of colazal, but I need to take 12 pills a day. A fifteen day supply already costs $400... I need some sort of income soon... I might lose my job because of my absences. Its looking pretty bad. My job is only enough to cover the cost of the medicine... barely. Its such a dead end. I need to stop getting sick like this.

In addition, I'm trying a new diet that's supposed to cure my intestines. Its called "the specific carbohydrate diet" SCD for short. I've been on it for less than a week. I don't notice that many changes but at least the gas has gone away. The gas smelled so bad I wanted to die. I think the food I was eating was only rotting inside of me.

With this new diet, its not easy at all. I need to make all of my own meals and make sure the ingredients don't have any additives that will make me sick. I'm not allowed to have starches and sugars. That leaves out bread, most cheases, ice cream, milk, potatoes, candy... for the most part, I am allowed to have fruits, meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and vegetables. This is really different from the "low residue diet". Actually its like the opposite.

All of my meals look like they will be bland. I can't have things like ketchup because even in that they add sugars and starches that I shouldn't be eating.

Its very hard right now because I'm not really in any condition to walk around or drive. So I depend on my parents to buy my food. And, if they don't get around to it, I don't get to eat.

No job, no friends, no health, no will, no brain...

I just took my medicine [prednisone]. The trick is to not let it touch your tongue or else it will taste bad. I hate taking all these pills.

I spend my days watching a lot of anime and DVDs. And when I feel better to sit down for a long while, I chat or "window shop" on the internet. I need to rest myself and learn to relax. Slowly I am cutting away everything in my life. Its quite sad but I am alone anyway.

Today is one of the bad days. My legs are weak and I have a lot of abdominal pain. Today is one of those days where I stay in bed and only get up if I have to. I'm very bored and very lonely. I haven't been out of this house in about ten days. If it weren't for the D, I probably wouldn't shower either (its too painful to get up). But the D always makes me feel dirty. I still feel unclean after a long hot shower.

I live one day at a time now. Its terrible when there is nothing to look forward to. But there is no way of me knowing how I'm going to feel. I wish I was normal.