Tag: IBS

Feeling Trapped

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

Today is a very, very bad day. I took my last Sulfasalazine tablets two days ago. (It’s meant to be four a day.) My stomach has been BAD. It’s like a terrible IBS flare up but with heartburn since last week, and trapped liquid since Sunday. I can feel and hear the liquid in my abdomen. It’s been miserable. Sulfasalazine has been known to “tear up” people’s stomachs so much that they stop it and are put on a different medication. (I wish the patients who mention this would be more descriptive. Is what I’m experiencing what they have experienced?) As I said before, the rheumatologist said nothing about expected or common side effects so I don’t know if this is it, or the HRT. Yeah, the gynae ALSO didn’t tell me anything. All she said the first time I went to her was that if tests show I’m menopausal, she can start me on HRT. She handed me pamphlets on specific HRT meds (None of which are the one she put me on!) and the pamphlets really were about reasons to go on HRT (Reduce osteoporosis, heart attack risk, hot flashes etc) and how low the increased cancer risk is.

But again, google says it can cause digestive issues. Whatever that means.

I went off the sulfasalazine first instead of the HRT because more AS patients mention the stomach problems than do menopausal women. Autumn is here, and my joints are screaming. They were crying when autumn crept in, but today, they are SCREAMING! My sternum is aching, my knees, fingers, feet… I am in a terrible place. I’d say on a scale of 1-10 I’m at an eight. The pain and fatigue are incredible. I wish I could press the weight of what I’m feeling on you (If you’ve never experienced it) so you could understand how much of a loving mom I am to still keep smiling and talking and hugging my children. If I could, I’d put myself in a quiet hospital where no nurse will come at night and ask to be sedated till this is over.

And my stomach issues are still not perfect. But I can’t handle today. Yes, the sulfasalzine has only reduced my suffering from AS, and I am only ASSUMING that not having any since yesterday is the reason why things are so awful today. Maybe they would be ANYWAY! But I’m back on it for now.

I wish there was a way to see inside my body and figure out what is causing my digestive system to be so miserable. I wish there was a cure for AS and all the other problems I have.

I wish I was ok.

Going to see if I have any prednisone left. It’s that bad. And taking prednisone in the afternoon is a recipe for lack of sleep tonight. But, I can’t take this. I hope to return with something more entertaining or edifying or educational. But for any other chronic pain sufferers experiencing a terrible flare up and out of ‘spoons,’ I feel you. No amount of faith takes the pain away. It just helps us to live it with grace.

That would be prideful of me

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

Around early 2019, a younger woman I met -in her 30’s-asked how I was. She’s one of those who means it when she asks, so I told her that I was in the middle of an IBS flare, and wasn’t in a good physical space due to other long standing issues. Which I now realize are due to AS, or are common co-occurrences-like the IBS itself.

Her response was along the lines of, “You sound like you’ve accepted that this is how your life will be. No! God doesn’t want you to be sick! He desires health for all of us. You must pray…”

That would be presumptuous of me. And prideful. The world is full of suffering of every kind. Bombs, tribal wars, earthquakes and awful diseases. Ever seen a little child suffering from EB? Does God “WANT” little children to be sick? Does He want people to have cancer? If those people, especially the innocent children, have to deal with suffering, why not me? Why would I not accept suffering when they have to too?

I’m not more important or less undeserving than they are. Good, bad, evil, perfect, selfish, selfless, nobody is going to be guaranteed a life free from trials. Why would I expect preferential treatment from God? The same God Who bears long with sinners so that they repent and go home to heaven one day, allows the world we are in to do its thing.

Only heaven will be like heaven. Only in heaven (and the new earth) will God’s will be done. By all of us. It’s not like I’m perfect, why would I expect a perfect life? Until then, His grace is as sufficient for me as it was for poor Paul who begged Him to remove the “thorn in his flesh” many times.

Paul prayed for healing. He didn’t want to be sick. But God had other plans. Anne so Paul’s prayers changed. I stopped praying in 2012. I remember it very well. We’d gone to the shop and my back was killing me. It wasn’t even a long trip. Or was only shopping for a family of four who all ate the same things -it was quick. But by the time I got into the car, I was in agony. I silently asked God why He hasn’t healed me. Why none of the physio helped. Why He wasn’t taking this cup away from me.

I wept and pleaded as never before. I told HimI wanted to be a more present wife and mother. I wanted to visit sick lonely patients in hospital. I couldn’t when I couldn’t even sit in a car or be upright without pain. But He didn’t heal me. I gave up. I didn’t deserve to receive what Paul, the great preacher didn’t get. I didn’t deserve what Christ Himself didn’t get. They didn’t have lives free from suffering, so why should I? I stopped pressing for healing, but have never stopped praying for strength, for grace to suffer without lashing out. For a sinless life. THOSE, I know for sure are His will for me on this plague-filled planet.