Disconnect

August 2007
Following my colonoscopy I was trying to come out of the haze of anesthesia they had put me under, and process what my doctor was telling me.
“As I suspected, you have Crohn’s Disease.” She touched my arm in a sympathetic manner, and I could feel my mother sitting to my left, inhale deeply as she heard the news. I nodded as she explained the pills she would send me home with. Ten pills a day, wonderful.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst my doc had seen, I was a 7, fantastic. I then asked for saltine crackers as I hadn’t eaten in almost 30 hours. I inhaled the crackers and watched as my mother asked the questions. Thank god she was there to bear witness because I had checked out at that point. I was anemic, with internal bleeding in my ileum, tired, weak, drugged and hungry.

At the moment I got the news all I could feel was a huge sense of relief that at least I finally had a term for what I had been going through. I wasn’t imagining it all, it wasn’t all in my head that I could barely make it through an 8 hour day at work without collapsing from exhaustion. Six doctors and one year later I finally had a term, which meant people would now believe me, and take me seriously. Finally there was an explanation, which meant there had to be hope.

It wasn’t until an hour later, while sitting and waiting for a sandwich that the gravity of my situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I assume this is when the meds wore off. My mother was standing at the counter waiting for our food, and I was seated in the middle of the deli. Suddenly I was sobbing uncontrollably; I had no concern for any of the other customers who were there. I was having some sort of tunnel vision, it seemed like an out of body experience. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me, what I would have to endure. It seemed I was outside of my body watching myself when I took my mother’s advice, pushed past the onlookers and walked towards the car.