Friday was my first attack of Crohns disease in 7 weeks – and it was bad.

I had been feeling a bit off all this week I had scored a throat infection from one of the hundreds of medical centres, radiologists and hospitals I had been in over the last month, but that wasn’t all. I had started to get that all too familiar pang in my abdomen which usually signaled “batten down the hatches”, however, it seemed to go away and I went on as usual. Friday, it didn’t go away. And because there is little understanding at my workplace, I had the weekly cleaning to do on top of it. Crohns pain is very hard to explain – I assume it’s different for everyone, since there is nearly no online accounts of it I can only guess. My personal pain is quite severe. I can usually categorise it one of three ways: 1/ I feel like someone has stabbed me and is occasionally twisting the knife 2/ I feel like I have been shot by a high calibre weapon and 3/ I feel like I am repeatedly being jabbed with a thin, splintered, wooden stake. You will notice that all of the above are quite violent descriptions – for me, this is a quite violent disease. Friday I had the knife being twisted in between reminders that I had to clean the kitchen, the bathroom and mop the entire bottom level of the building. Now I am not against manual labour, but when you feel like you have a knife in your intestines, its not the first thing on your mind. I tried to explain to the others at work that I was not well – they looked at me like “so, live with it, you’re not getting out of cleaning”. So I closed my eyes, pretended I was somewhere else and did it as quickly as I could while all the time trying not to show how much pain I was in – god forbid I make anyone else uncomfortable because of my problem. I had to leave 10 minutes early that day – my boss asked ‘are you alight?’ I replied ‘no’ with a forced smile on my face and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

Upon returning home from work I broke out the big guns. We still had some Panadol Forte left in the drug draw, I took two straightaway and lay down and waited for them to work. You see not only did I have to do the domestic duties at work that day while feeling like I had just been evacuated, I also had to sub for a guy I knew in the Friday night league at Go Bowling Ashmore. For all who don’t know me, I am a Ten Pin Bowler and I love it. So I dragged myself out of bed and down to the bowl – the Panadol kicked in relatively quickly, although that might have been because I also took three aspirin at work before I transformed into Sadie. I got through the first two games fine – but in the third, the pain returned and I took a seat. I had to quietly mention to my coach, who by chance I was bowling, that I would need his help getting my equipment back in my car. He looked at me with a concern written on his face and told me he’d take care of it. He ended up taking it home to service. My coach and his wife… I don’t have words to describe how many times that have come to my aid over the last two months, but needless to say they are part of my family and I am blessed to have them in my life.

I got home, weak, tired and white. I had enough energy to take yet more asprin, have a shower and get into bed. I fell asleep until 4am. I woke to find the knife back in my abdomen and the torturer twisting with an invigorated zest. I tried to make more pain killers – but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even stand up straight. My cat was at the kitchen bench with me and smooched me as I cried into our sink. I had to ask my partner to make my drugs for me. The reality of Crohns Disease and what the rest of my life would be like hit me early on Saturday morning as he lay beside me asking whether we should consider going to the hospital. I had been so happy it wasn’t cancer up until that point that I hadn’t considered the other side. Cancer, one way or another, ceases to be a problem after a while. Crohns will be with me until a complication puts me in an early grave or I die in the natural course of things. I remember saying to him “I don’t know if I can do this every few months for the rest of my life – I don’t know if I want to” and that was the honest truth.

Saturday was a complete write off. I had stopped vomiting at about 7am, about an hour after Stocker left for puppy school without me. And as quickly as the attack began, it was over and my body was left decimated from the pain and chemicals I had been pumping into it. I ended up sleeping most of the day– I guess I needed it though.

Things were always going to come to a head with this disease. The honeymoon period of “its not cancer” was always going to wear off. To be blunt, the pain is the most excruciating thing I have ever been through in my life… so bad there are points I wish I was dead. Then in a blink of an eye, its over and you are left wondering what all the fuss was about… until your next attack.