Accept­ing the Hospital

One night in bed I insisted on being left alone I had an out of body expe­ri­ence and real­ized that I was going to die. I was in bed yet my spirit had sunk below the bed through the floor of the house and was look­ing up towards my body. The real­iza­tion of death took over and I decided that I was not going to let this dis­ease take my life. A flush of energy took over my body and even though I was still sick I knew I was going to be ok.

Book­ing into an alter­na­tive bowel treat­ment cen­ter, I tried many treat­ments. That clinic was just learn­ing about oxy­gen ther­apy, which I did along with colonics, wheat grass juice and many other treat­ments. Hav­ing never taken any steroids or med­ica­tion for my crohns I had done these kinds of treat­ment off and on for years. This time it was dif­fer­ent, no response and I was deteriorating.

It was time for some­thing dras­tic. Being still scared about the thought of surgery real­is­ti­cally this was the only option left. I had lost all con­trol over my bow­els and vom­ited any­thing by mouth.

Being in Toronto, Mount Sinai hos­pi­tal was the best for bowel prob­lems. At 82lbs, hav­ing lost most of my vision due to dehy­dra­tion, not being able to stand I con­sented to going to the hos­pi­tal. When we got there my hemo­glo­bin was so low from bleed­ing that they could not under­stand why I had not died. The oxy­gen ther­apy and my deci­sion of not dieing ear­lier was what was keep­ing me alive.

Once in the hos­pi­tal, on some steroids, and TPN, my mind started to come back. Becom­ing aware of my sur­round­ing again it was quite an expe­ri­ence for me to. Hav­ing only been in a hos­pi­tal once or twice in my life for a quick visit, I was in shock. Mount Sinai hos­pi­tal has a whole wing ded­i­cated to bowel surgery, the biggest in Canada. The sad­dest place I had ever been.

Most hos­pi­tal stays for peo­ple are a few days maybe a week, well not here, a few months maybe a year, and the aver­age age was under 30. Most of you with an Ostomy know what I am talk­ing about. The despair that one gets when they are admit­ted to hos­pi­tal with no idea of when they will be able to go home, and it looks like it will be months. I was defi­antly not stay­ing; I would be out of here next week.

Well the weeks turned into months, and I did not get to go home but at least I was being trans­ferred to a hos­pi­tal closer to my family.

Love Love Sheri