Re-enemated

I disappeared for a while.

I disappeared into darkness, anger, and pain.

My second Crohn's flare started simmering in late February. The difference between everyday symptoms and a flare is obvious for me: blood. Losing blood is not an everyday symptom.

What caused this flare? I discourage that question, because the factors at play in this disease are many, tangled, highly individual, and poorly understood. But that said, maybe the inflammation was kicked off when I tried to eat a couple (literally, a couple) well-cooked vegetables that I hadn't eaten in a while. Can you blame me? Regardless, I had no idea after a year of relative health that my condition was so very tenuous. That's scary, that my health can plummet so immediately.

I firmly believe everyone with Crohn's should have this towel next to their toilet.
(Ten points to you if you get the reference.)

March kicked off what would become a grueling months-long trial full of attempts to cage my poor deranged immune system. Gastroenterologists, blood tests, stool tests, steroids, more of this medication, less of that medication, complication after complication. Nightly steroid enemas, anal fissure ointment, a colonoscopy to boot.

The steroids that were my savior during my first flare didn't work this time. I was on a high dose for far longer this year, long enough to suffer not only from the cosmetic side effects (unfortunate hair growth, raging acne, weight gain, hello) but also from the mental side effects: confusion, anxiety, depression, outrageous mood swings. And when my knees swelled up without warning one Monday, I felt like giving up completely. (No one wants to hear, when they see you on crutches, that it's a medication side effect. They'd rather hear that you slipped on a banana peel while vacuuming. Alas.)

Crutches: more exercise than one would think.

Exhaustion: deep, consuming, just-climbed-a-mountain exhaustion. Agony: Alien-attempting-to-burst-through-my-abdomen agony. Fear: blinding, fiery, imminent-destruction fear. And guilt, when the best option was to ramp up to the next "tier" of medication, one that involves me injecting myself with two needles every month.

It's a big, scary syringe with a cute name.

Despite all this, I was mostly okay for the first five or six weeks of this flare. I'd been through one before and knew I could survive it, that life would get better eventually. But I couldn't maintain my positive outlook. I got overwhelmed. Hope is crucial for making it through the darkness; the pain hid hope behind a locked door and I saw it happening but didn't stop it. I started snapping at the people who asked me how I was doing, sobbing the moment I was alone. There were moments of lightness, like when I spent a few hours brainstorming hilarious enema puns ("Sleeping with the Enema," anyone?). For the most part, though, three months of my life disappeared into a void.

Enema, dressed in white! Doesn't it look like one of those bottles used to feed baby farm animals? No?

I'm about back to how I felt pre-flare, which is still not great, but it's glorious not to be in pain all the time and to be off the worst of the steroids. The injectable medication seems to be having some effect. I wish I had some deeper insight to give upon looking back at this year so far, but I'm still in a bit of daze. However, there are a few small realizations (pieces of advice for someone going through a similar situation?) I can offer:

1. You are loved. People want to help you. Let them help. Appreciate them.
2. Try to find those little bright spots to sustain you until you can see the light again.
3. Reevaluate how you will spend the healthy days.

I'm so grateful to everyone who offered me a kind word or a loving embrace. There are a few voices and warm hands that I can credit for carrying me and helping me break down the door behind which hope lay in wait. There really is so much beauty in the world. I don't want to forget that again.