I INCYST... Part 1

Today is Thursday, June 10th.  I haven’t written in a few days, but over the past few days I’ve been busy taking some of my own advice.  And it’s not that easy… especially when I was in the hospital for something other than Crohn’s.  I was reminded very quickly what being a new patient was all about.  This expert patient was not so sure of herself.

But I turned to my own thoughts and words as a road map to navigate this rough, painful week.  Now that several days have passed, I’ve got some of my energy back, and I was finally able to hit the computer in these wee hours of the morning.

So let me back up about a week or so.

My abdomen started to ache just a bit.  No big deal.  But on Saturday night, I could not sleep because the pain was so intense.  It felt different, though.  This was below my belly button, and usually pain from a Crohn’s flare was all over the abdomen. 

After a few hours of my husband’s snoring, of my side going numb because it hurt to move into any other position and my own moaning, it was apparent I’d have to go to the E.R.  The fact that I woke up my husband without trying was quite rare and quite telling.

It was about 4:00, the birds were chirping, and there would soon be the slightest bit of light outside the window as the sun reminded us how long the days were.

“Let’s go,” Nate said.

With the exception of the pain and numbness on my side, I was actually comfortable.  A fan lightly blew the crisp night air around the room.  The comforter was cool to the touch, but warm underneath.  I smelled the myriad of perennials growing around our first-floor apartment of the 100-year-old house.

“Are you sure?” I asked.  I was really asking Nate if he was sure he didn’t mind getting out of our bed and leaving our most tranquil place in the world behind us so he could sit in an uncomfortable chair under fluorescent lighting.

“Let’s go,” he said again.  He knew the drill.

Nate is the loveliest person I know.  He is my best friend and cares for me deeply.  Unlike all of my other relationships, ours did not start with fireworks.  It was practically nothing, but has turned into something that continues to grow a little more every day.

People like to say their wedding day was the best day of their life.  But I’m so much closer to my husband now than I was then.  We’ve had so many best days since then, and I’m sure we’ll continue to have countless more.  It might sound hokey, but when a chronic illness forces a life lived day to day, it’s impossible not to live in each day and live in each moment. 

I first met Nathan when the two of us were working in Dayton, Ohio, at the ABC/FOX affiliate.  He was the executive producer and creator of a four-hour morning show.  When I arrived as a reporter there, I didn’t like him much.  We were both passionate and creative, and when I became the morning show reporter, we bumped heads.  A lot.

It didn’t take long for that spark we felt for journalism and for television and for so many things in life to become a spark we felt for each other.  Granted, it was teeny tiny as we became friendly, then friends, then eventually something much more.

Nate reminds me of a big bear just out of hibernation when he stretches in the morning.  He’s 6’1” and his chest expands as he lets out a big “ARRRGGHH!” -head tilted back, eyes closed and fists reaching for the corners of the room. 

As I looked up at him Sunday morning, I could see the dark facial hair that outlines his jaw and the hairs the form a goatee below his nose and around his mouth.  When his big stretch was complete, he walked to my side of the bed, leaned over and stroked my hair.

His long eyelashes and beautiful green eyes asked me nicely to get up.  Then he whispered, “C’mon.  Let’s go.”

He let me get out of bed on my own as he got dressed, got something to eat and drink for the road, then came back to check on me.

Nate knew the rules of the E.R.  We’ve been married for about a year and a half now, but he’d been with me in the E.R. dozens of times in the three and a half years I’ve known him.

It had become routine.  We didn’t need to discuss the timing.  It was perfect.  It was four in the morning on a Sunday…doesn’t get better than that.  Our wait time would be minimal.

I half-rolled, half-slid out of bed.  I grabbed the first thing I could find with a relatively loose waistband- a skort, of course… then a T-shirt, sweatshirt and sandals.  I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and grabbed my glasses.     

Nate gave me a Diet Mountain Dew to throw in my bag, along with my meds and my wallet. 

“Am I forgetting anything?” I said to no one, as I heard Nate grabbing the keys in the kitchen.

I can hit the snooze several times, I take forever to get out of bed, and I’ll stay in my pajamas for hours if the day lets me.  But from the very second I wake up, I’m usually alert, I’ll laugh at a joke and I can talk.  I can always talk.

My husband is grumpy when he first wakes up.  Cranky, moody and grumpy.  I’m still learning to get used to this.  Sometimes I start telling a story, and I think he’s downright angry with me or with the topic.  I have to stop talking.  That is not easy for me.  But when 20 minutes or so passes, the first hint of a smile hits his cheeks, and I can begin a conversation with him.

We were silent as the car sped through the darkness down University Ave. toward St. Paul.

Those damn potholes.  I have lived in many cities in my adult life.  I’ve lived in the north, the south, big cities and small towns.  Minneapolis and St. Paul, by far, have the worst potholes of anywhere.  Being a passenger on the road to the hospital is painful.

I grimaced as we made our way through a few lights. 

“How you doing, hot stuff?” Nate asked as he touched my cheek, then put his hand on my leg and squeezed.  Twenty minutes were up. 

“You know, if we can get in and out, I can still make it to work on time,” I said, looking at the clock and imagining the next few hours.

“You can’t call in sick?”

“Really?  Who is going to come in?” I asked. 

Right now I work part-time as an assignment editor at the local FOX affiliate.  One of our full-time assignment editors quit in March to travel the world, but as is the case at every station I’ve ever worked, filling a vacancy is not a priority.  A vacancy is money to be saved.

But more than my concern for who would come in on a Sunday morning to sift through the daily planner, the press releases and the schedules, listen to scanners and check voice mail and email, and create a working rundown of which reporter and photog would do what that day… I absolutely could not miss work. 

I had only missed a few days because of a buldged disc in my back thanks to my ill attempts at breaking up an icy porch in the winter.

But I had not had one sick day because of Crohn’s.  I’d been at FOX for more than seven months, and I hadn’t had to call in sick.  Not for my gut.  I was not about to ruin that streak now.  No way. 

We would get in, get pain meds and maybe an x-ray, and get out.  I would be to work in five hours.

I did make it to work later that morning.  But this whole trip and all this pain had nothing to do with Crohn’s.  Of course I didn’t know it then, as Nate pulled up in front of the hospital.

I walked to the front doors as Nate parked the car.  I could barely stand up straight.  This pain was abdominal, but it was different.  I was just so used to the E.R. trip for Crohn’s flare-ups, I didn’t pay any attention to what my body was telling me.   And it was not telling me that anything was wrong with my digestive system.  My reproductive system, yes, but not my gut.