Crohn’s Disease, Surgery, Blessings

My husband has had Crohn’s disease for about 15 years.  He started having symptoms as a teenager, which was a difficult time to have something “wrong” with him.  He has always struggled to keep his weight up, and in high school, as most everyone is aware, being smaller as a male is difficult.  At least partly because of this he hid his disease and symptoms from the rest of the world. It was hard coming out of his self-imposed shell.  The last few months it has become increasingly difficult to hide, and he realized he didn’t even want to.  He made four trips into the ER (two resulting in hospital stays) with intestinal blockages between January and March.  He was most recently trying Remicade, although he has tried most of the drug treatments (pentasa, azulfidine, imuran, budesonide, prednisone) out there.  It may have otherwise helped, but the scar tissue in his intestine built up even more and was causing some serious problems (i.e. the blockages).

On June 1, 2010, he had bowel surgery and resection.  He went into surgery right about 1:30 and the surgery took about 5 hours.  They were hoping to do the surgery laparoscopically but towards the end they had to switch to full open surgery (make a long vertical incision).  He was close to a blood transfusion but didn’t end up needing one.  Today, (one week to the day later) praise Jesus, he is doing well.  We are thankful.  They took about a foot of small intestine and a little bit of the ascending colon.  The doctor didn’t see any disease in the remaining bowel.  For this too, we are thankful.

One day post-surgery, he had been up walking (twice), had consumed some water and a little sugar-free Jell-O.  He had great color, his sense of humor, and felt pretty good (all things considered).  His hospital stay was 4 days long.  A week later he is eating most foods, including wheat bread (something he has avoided for several months).  He has yet to try seeds, nuts, or raw vegetables but at this point they shouldn’t be an issue.  This is huge for him and us.

Something like this makes you truly thankful for all those willing to lend a hand.  We have had more phone calls, emails, and notes than I can keep track of.  People from all over are praying and asking how they can help.  What a blessing.  We feel so completely overwhelmed by the kindness of so many people, and by the greatness of God.

We have a long recovery road ahead.  Husband won’t be able to lift over 10 pounds for about 6 weeks and he will be tired and healing for a long time.  Daddy-daughter play will have to be greatly changed.  I will be functioning as caretaker, single parent, and chauffeur (Hubby won’t be able to drive for a while either).  I am overjoyed to do these things because that means my husband is home and healing, but it does mean some extra work for all of us.

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