Time for one of those...

....different sort of blogs.  I need to start with an apology, because some of the following is a repeat.  (Let's précis the historical bit.)

1982 - Crohn's suspected.

1990 - Crohn's confirmed.

(In the intervening years, many tests, many pills and potions, many bouts of severe pain.)

1997 - Undergo small bowel resection

1999 - Crohn's gets 'foot back in the door'

2002 - Suspicion of pancreatic problems due to previous surgery

2009 - Exit sites of bile and pancreatic ducts relocated.

(In the intervening years, many tests, many pills and potions, Reiki sessions etc, many bouts of severe pain.)

2011 - Crohn's gets 'foot back in the door'

2012 - Confirmed that there is no prescribed drug currently on the market that can help. Talk about further surgery. Great concern by all, due to 'significant risk factor and mortality issue'

2012 (Sept onwards) - Can barely eat.  Any and all foodstuffs causes intense debilitating pain

2013 (Feb) - More intestine removed.

2013 ((Jul) - Crohn's hits back, hard.  Confirmed no period of remission appeared likely - more pills and potions; more tests.

 

My ability to absorb nutrients and proteins has been severely curtailed by the illness and the operations; so I have a constant battle against extreme fatigue

 

So much for the history.......

 

On 8th Sept I went to a healing service, in my own parish, led by Ash Kotecha. I went, worn down by the knowledge that the pain wasn't going to leave me, but get worse.  Worn down by the knowledge that I was (not so merrily) trundling along a road towards having my 'food' fed straight into my veins.

 

I stood at the front of the church, with a few others. At no time was I touched by any other person  (I knew that the power of prayer had more than helped me through the dark days at the beginning of the year.) The longer I stood there focussing on spoken words of Scripture I'd heard many time before, I became hotter and hotter (internally).  It was close to unbearable, and the pain was still there, still as intense.  At the end of the evening, the heat had gone, but the pain hadn't.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was aware that the pain was much less, and the sharp stabbing attacks were not lasting as long. And this is how it has remained. Instead of a daily pain level of 7-9, it's usually a level of 3 or 4.  It does still hurt to sit in meetings, as in sitting still for long periods.  It still wakes me up when I inadvertently move onto the traumatised area of my abdomen.  The level of fatigue is still the same.  But, overall, I feel just as I did approx. 15 years ago.  And if this is the general level the pain remains at, you'll hear no complaints from me. 

 

 

I know what happened on 15 February. I now know what happened on 8 September.  Do I understand it?  In truth, I doubt I ever will, but I know it and give thanks for it.