Alice vs Her Own Body - Grudge Match

Ding! Ding! Round 3! 

 

Living with Crohn's Disease became just part of the day-to-day, intermittent periods of feeling like my insides were trying to come out of my body were the worst but they seemed to come and go. That was until I was 26. I began feeling entirely exhausted in June 2009, a familiar but overwhelming exhaustion. I doubt I will ever forget the (now ironic) words of the gastroenterologist who, when I told him I was so exhausted I found going to work difficult, told me 'it's just part of having Crohn's Disease, just count yourself lucky that you are not worse off or permanently on steriods'.

Two and a half months later I was vomiting daily, unable to keep anything substantial down and feeling wretched. I thought my Crohn's was playing up but I was still vomiting after 10 days and I was losing weight quickly. When I started to get pain in my left knee joint, I couldn't sleep at all and every inch of my skin itched I knew something more was wrong. I saw a GP as soon as I could who sent me home with an antihistamine and an anti-nausea tablet clearly having no idea what to do with me. The next morning I woke with yellow starting to colour the whites of my eyes, I managed to get an emergency trip to the GP who took one look at me and sent me straight to A&E. I was poked and prodded and wheeled around on a bed, lots of head scratching and a hundred questions later and I was admitted. I was seen by 3 different doctors within 4 hours and they clearly had no idea what to do with me, each different doctor would press on my liver area and ask me if it was sore and I would say no. However, I only said no for the first day and a half as I became increasingly uncomfortable, everything hurt more and my skin became more and more yellow (I could have passed as Simpson's character).

Testing! Testing! 1-2-3!

The most terrifying tests I have ever had were done in the 12 days I was in hospital, the worst being a scan. For anyone who has ever had one, you will know exactly what I mean, for anyone who has not and might in the future the trick is NEVER OPEN YOUR EYES! I wasn't given the opportunity to listen to music I was just strapped down to a table, given headphones so I could hear instructions and loaded head first into a scanner. I thought 'Hey, these look cool and massive on TV, like some kind of cool space machine! I wanna see!'...I opened my eyes and started internally screaming 'FUCK FUCK FUCK! CLOSE YOUR EYES! DON'T PANIC!'. This was not some cool space machine, it was a beige nightmare mere millimetres away from my face and i couldn't see anything. I started to panic, the people in the control room were talking to me, I spoke to them, still panicking but no answer. Why the fuck were they not listening to me?! I remembered the squishy thing in my hand, it was a panic button but quickly realised if I pressed it I would just have to go through this claustrophobic hell again. I swear it was the longest 20 minutes of my life, breathing in and out on command and feeling my back get hot from the scan. It took me a long time to calm down after the scan, I hope I never have to go through that again. The scan showed I have small gallstones but they were not the reason for my full on Simpson's-a-like colouring and pain in my right side.

Next up on the we-have-no-idea-what-is-wrong-with-you-so-we-will-poke-and-prod-you-more thrill ride was a liver biopsy as the daily blood tests showed my liver function was impaired and count was through the roof. The biopsy was rough, a very kind nurse held my hand while a man inserted a very long needle into my side, past my ribs and into my liver, he then took a biopsy. This was fucking horrible (I could feel it).

 

A few more days of blood tests and the biopsy results came through, the reason I couldn't sit properly upright, was vomiting, in pain, felt horrible and turned yellow is because my body had started to go haywire again and thinks my liver is a foreign body that it must expel. It was confirmed I have Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH). Argh, my body was at war with my liver, my liver!

So, it's 2009 and the scores are Auto-Immune Diseases 2 - Alice 0

Come back soon to see Alice vs Her Own Body - The Fight Back!