Baltimore and My Colon

Yep, you read that right.  Last Friday afternoon we drove up to Baltimore so I could have a colonoscopy Saturday morning.   They were primarily checking to see if my colon was still suffering from some severe inflammation that was found in October.  I have Crohn’s Disease and it seems it is causing a lot of inflammation and irritation in my large intestine.  I am fortunate at the moment, because the rest of me is feeling just fine.   That’s usually not the case if you are seeing Crohn’s activity.  But, post recent cancer, and feeling fine, giving Crohn’s meds is ill advised.

So, we decided to make a little trip out of it and afterward take the boys to the aquarium there and to stop at Ikea on the way home.    I usually feel a little drowsy, but otherwise good after a scope (with Crohn’s, I’ve had many over the years).

Well, the scope went fine, though it did confirm some serious inflammation going on.   I have photos, but will spare you that!   Suffice it to say, that leaving inflammed colon in your body is essentially leaving a breeding ground for cancer in your body (especially if you’ve already had one tumor there), and that I have managed just fine not using that colon since March (my system has been diverted), so we are going forward with its removal.  While this shocks a lot of people, frankly it’s given me nothing but grief for a while, and I’m not interested in any more of that grief from it, so I’m surprisingly comfortable with seeing it go.  Bye bye.   It’s “exit” date is next Thursday, January 23.  More on that later.

Anyway, unfortunately, my “usual scope recovery” is not what happened and I felt awful the whole weekend.  Nathan took the kids around the aquarium while I sat in the cafeteria bummed not to be with them and feeling badly for Nathan because the aquarium also requires you to check the stroller, so he was chasing wild Wyatt around and helping Malcolm look the whole time.  Happily Malcolm did enjoy it – he says his favorites were the jellyfish and the dolphins.  Malcolm & I agreed it would be a fun thing to go back and do when Wyatt is a little older and we don’t want a stroller (and Malcolm sweetly added and when Mommy feels better).     Unfortunately, no photos from the day since it worked out a bit differently than planned.

We did make a quick run through IKEA (I wish I felt better- I love that place!), and then headed home, where it still took me another 24 hours to feel like eating or functioning.  I actually think, in retrospect, that I had been fighting a virus all week and that it finally caught up with me post-scope.  Yuck.    Anyway, I’m feeling better now than I have in a week, but what a bummer of a quick trip!

But,my cuties were as cute and awesome as usual.   Big night for Wyatt – first night sleeping in a grown up bed (in the hotel, with Mommy).

Here’s a quick cell photo of them getting ‘settled’ into the room …