Holding It All In Do Not Do This To Yourself

I never have told anyone about this and I was going to write about it many times.  I just never did.  After I had my first daughter, my body could not take any more stress.  I had to do as my mother-in-law asked me to do.  My mother was at me all the time to not say anything and be nice because I was lucky to have a place to live.  I was cleaning house for them…all five of them plus a live-in and my husband’s parents.  It was a full house to say the least.  Well it turned out to end up that I was to be maid 24 hours of the day and not just while the kids were in school and the others at work.  I was being quiet and taking it all in…..but then something happened.

My body shut down one night.  I had diarrhea and was trying to throw up at the same time.  After doing that for about a half hour I collapsed and I did not have any energy to even get up off the small bathroom floor. It had a shower stall a toilet and a small sink and to get to the shower you had to close the bathroom door first.  I could barely call out for help.  My husband or my mother-in-law found me on the floor.  I don’t remember who it was.  I know that my husband picked me up and took me to the Emergency Room.  I was like a wet noodle in his arms. 

When we got to the Emergency Room they told me that I had Ulcerative Colitis and they sent me home with some banana tasting stuff.  It was good going down but had a very bitter aftertaste.  I think the name was Paragoric or something like that.  This was the first time in the Emergency Room that I would end up in with this condition.

One day I did speak up and I did get mad and I left.  I walked to my parent’s house which was about a two hour walk.  The ONLY regret that I have with that is that I left my baby there and did not take her with me.  She finally was sleeping soundly and I did not want to wake her up.  I was going to come back and get her later too.  The live-in was telling me that I was making a big mistake.  *I* was making a mistake.  Oh hun, he was sleeping with the mother-in-law and I caught them in bed together.  I never said anything about know that until just now….and I was making the big mistake!!!

He told me that I would have to come get the baby and make up with my husband.  It was not my husband who I would be making up too.  I told him (who the heck did he think he was…not my in-law) that my husband would have to come and get me if he still wanted to be married.  He did come and get me and them we ended up living with my parents.  Not the greatest move either as my mom and I did not get along then either.  I was not a maid there and that helped lots.  I had bouts of the Ulcerative Colitis while there but I could hide the pain and the other symptoms fairly well.

We finally found the Low-Income apartments and was doing OK there, but I had another couple of bouts in the Emergency Room with the Ulcerative Colitis.  One time we were visiting my parents and I had the symptoms but this time I could not hide them and it alarmed my mother.  She kept asking me if I was OK and if she could do anything.  She was scared….and so was I. I knew what it was that was happening to me and it was all due to the stress that I was being put under to be quiet and not rock the boat.  I did not want my mom to see this at all….but she did.  A few days later I went back into the hospital.  When you have this condition you spend lots of time in the hospital.  Each time it is about a week.  I send 9 times in the hospital for this until I found out what would put in it remission once and for all.  I found that out by having another condition that I will tell you about in another chapter.

Let me tell you the pain that goes along with this disease.  Each person has different symptoms or reactions with this and this is only my reaction or symptoms.  Mind you I was in my early 20’s when this all started and it is a lifetime condition.  It can hit you at any time in your life, until you find a way to manage your stress.

These are the list of what happens to me when I am having an episode:

·        I get the sweats.  I mean I start sweating profusely for about 10 minutes.  It isn’t like the flu when you get these sweats, but you will notice them.

·        My intestines begin to feel like a hard steal pipe inside my belly.  It hurts just as if someone did shove a pipe inside of you.

·        You have a hard time breathing because you are holding your breath so that any movement does not bring any more pain.

·        You actually feel flushed.  I mean you feel all your blood in your upper body flow right out of you.  At this point in the process you cannot talk because you are in so much pain. This lasts for like a few minutes but feel more like an hour.

·        When that pin goes away you dart to the nearest bathroom and your body empties the intestines and your stomach. You then become weaker than a kitten. 

At this point in time someone has to pick you up because you cannot stand up by yourself, no matter how strong or embarrassed you think you are your body will shut itself down.  It will not ask for your permission first.  You will not have any control over it.

I do not recall which time this one was because I had another one after we took my youngest daughter to college.  It was her first time and we were moving her into her dorm room.  On the way home I wretched and had the dry heaves.  They had me on some Mescaline pills, but they were making me worse instead of better.  That was the last time that I took them and had a bout of Ulcerative Colitis and that was in the year 1997.

These diseases and conditions run in my family and I did not find that out until my father told me many years ago.  He and his sister had Diverticulosis and I got the Ulcerative Colitis.  All of the intestinal diseases runs in his family.  So it is hereditary, but can be managed, once you learn how and you learn to hear and listen to your own body.  Many people think it is about food, but I can tell you that it is not…it is about stress and how we deal with it and manage it for ourselves. 

After the bout that I had in my parent’s home and I was in the hospital for that one my doctor had a nice little chat with me.  He told me not to hold it all in and he told me to speak out. 

So I started to do so and it made my mother very angry with me.  We had fights after that.  I mean she tried to hit me once and I deflected her hand and broke her pinky finger.  Then my father told me to apologize to her and I told him that I would not. 

When we finally got out of her house and we lived on our own I never had another Ulcerative Colitis attack.  I did have to go back to get those nasty Colonoscopies and they did find that I have a total of 9 ulcers that run through my large intestines right into my rectum.  This is why I cannot drink alcohol in any shape or form including Nyquill.  Once that hits the ulcer, my stomach bloats up so big that I think my stomach will split.  Then the burning pain hits. 

After each Colonoscopy I would end up back in the hospital.  I would rather die not knowing then have another one of those that will send me back to the hospital for a week stay.  Until you go through all this you cannot judge someone who would rather die than go through that kind of thing again.  I ask you to please do not judge me on this.

A foot note here:  Someone that is reading these chapters did not see the reference about my dad taking my secrets to his grave.  Well I confided in him for years until my mother decided that was why he had his first heart attack.  The very first chapter in this series with the letter that was sent to my dad in his e-mail was 6 months before he died and I do not think that he showed that to my mother.  So everything that has happened to me was taken with him.  I never talk to my sister and both her and my mom think that I do not know anything and I am their punching bag and their scapegoat and someone they can bully.  These things they do not know and only my father knows… if not in life then he certainly knows in his death as he watches over me.

© Debra K. Allen a.k.a Lady Guinevere

I researched and wrote this article. Please do not copy and paste any part of this article, picture included for your own use. I will find you and report you for stealing.  It is my right to change any information therein at any time and/or change the location of my article.