I'd Like to Buy a Bowel

Mr. Crohn's is my mortal arch nemesis. I have the power to temporarily disable him. He has the power to make me weak, provide pain at the most awkward of moments, and stink up my apartment (I give him all the credit for that one). Since being diagnosed in 1998, I have tried a variety of methods to tame this wild beast of a stomach but none have really tempered the situation. Maybe the closest I ever came was with probiotics (VSL#3) throughout college. Since then I've been to various specialists (haven't found one I liked) who have tried various medications. When those didn't work to my satisfaction, I kind of fell out of the habit of daily medicating. Not the best choice, as my parents would quickly point out. My back-up solution is always to start over with antibiotics, flushing out all the bad bacteria, and fighting the battle to dominate with good bacteria.

I can't take credit for the title of this post, though it really sounds like something I would say. It came from the title of a blog about a twenty-something with Crohn's Disease. I found it in my search for some information about fish oil, which I'm considering for my next bad bacteria battle. Yes, unfortunately another war is needed. I started following The Bright Side of Crohn's, a blog by another twenty-something woman who was diagnosed in 2008. It helps to have people who are keeping up to date with advances in understanding Crohn's disease, especially my parents.

Can't complain though, because my Crohn's is really mild in comparison to others. My little brother has a bigger battle to fight with inflammation, and I have heard of others who have even more severe Crohn's than him. So I should be grateful, that the lessons I'm supposed to learn from this are not as painful or life altering. Yet I still find myself asking Scott, as if I was 15 and talking to my mom, "Can I get a new stomach?" My mom's answer was always, "Sure. Let's just cut it out right now. I'll get the knife." Surgery always seemed too extreme for me. I think I'll stick with trying out fish oil for now and eating as many calories as I can whenever I feel hungry enough.

P.S. The Bright Side of Crohn's just updated to say she had surgery and is currently Crohn's free. Dang! There goes my online blogging resource. Pretty sure that my Crohn's is genetic, so I'm not getting out of it that easily.