Gratitudenal Haze

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.  ~William Faulkner

Thanksgiving starts the holiday season. We gather together to give thanks for our bountiful harvest and everything that we have been blessed with this year. I know the holidays can be stressful and sometimes overwhelming, but I am always thankful for every one of my family members at home and far away. I have had a great year so far and I am so very grateful for all of my fantastic readers, followers, FB friends, tweeps, G+’ers, fellow bloggers and for any other type of cyber connection I have to you guys! I can go on and on about my year but I will save it for the Christmas card.

As I sat down to reflect on everything I am so darn thankful for I fell into a type of stupor a type of Gratitudenal Haze, if you will. It’s easy to lose your focus when you are inundated with so many blessings. I was quite overwhelmed at what all has transpired. I launched http://www.healthierstay.com, started writing this blog, met Jules and began working with What The Jules; professionally it’s been a big year. So many wonderful reasons to be thankful and it left me rather dazed. So I have decided to focus on the great medical achievements my brother and I have discovered and undergone this year.

My brother Nicolas also has Crohn’s, he has had one surgery and was resigned to perhaps having to have another one for a 90+% blockage in his colon. He had been so sick he almost died 3 times and had been in the hospital over 12 times in 10 months, it was getting to be a bit ridiculous. As a last ditch effort, one of his doctors suggested an intestinal stent. The stents were first used to help cancer patients whose disease made it impossible to resect their intestines. Since then it has been used with balloon ablation therapy as an alternative to surgery. Since his stent placement my brother has been taken off prednisone and many other medicines and is feeling much better and there is a chance that he could go into remission! For the doctors, my brother, his wife and children along with the stent inventor, I am eternally grateful.

I have also had a medical breakthrough this year. I went bionic. In August I had surgery for an implantable pain pump (IPP) placement. I was taking Morphine Sulfate, Dilaudid andNorcofor my pain every day and the pain was still really bad. I finally ended up in the hospital in April (the first time in five years) and I decided I needed to change my regimen. My pain doctor recommended an IPP; he had used them before for different types of patients and thought it might be a viable option for my Crohn’s pain. I love my pump, it is completely invisible under my skin and I am using 400% less medicine. I will write a post with all the gory details later and share with you the pros and cons. I feel better, no more withdrawal, or waiting for my pills to kick in so I can function. I still have pain, just like I would with pills, but the management of my pain is much better. On pills I was always between a six and a seven, now I’m usually a four or a five, unless I’m having an attack. Plus, as a Sci-Fi geek, being bionic is a bonus. Hmmm Lady Vader, I like the sound of that. Padme was pretty awesome until she wussed out at the end. Anyway, I am so thankful for my doctors, nurses the mad scientists that came up with the IPP and my family for supporting me and helping me stay away from the dark side.

I hope when you are sitting around the table or hanging with family this season that you get a chance to ruminate on some of the circumstances that you are thankful for and don’t get caught in the haze.  Have a wonderful holiday season.