IC My New Life

The storm irrupted after work. I was running late and I gobbled down a sandwich for lunch on my way to work. About an hour later the stomach cramps began. I took some medicine and soon forgot the pain.

Another hour goes by and I am hungry again, very hungry. I started a new medication for the neuropathy in my feet and it helps with the pain, but I stay hungry more often…oh great, now I’m sure to pack on some more unwanted and unneeded pounds…ugh!

To ease the hunger, I gobbled down a protein bar on the way home (what was I thinking…oh yeah, I wasn’t!) and soon felt the cramps and pain again. When I got home the violent storm began!!

I had to rush to the bathroom and I was definitely in an Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) attack. It was very severe. I felt so nauseated and weak I dragged myself to bed. A few minutes later the storm repeated again. This time it made me feel a little better.

You know how you feel when you have a stomach virus? With a virus you need to throw up and after you do, you are weak and nauseated. You know it is going to happen again and it is a terrible feeling. But after the last time, when it is finally all over, you feel a little better, only weak and worn out from the whole experience. That is how I feel all the time. That is how IBS makes me feel. I feel extremely weak, worn and nauseated most of the time and the majority of the time, I don’t even stop and rest, I just keep going.

If I stayed out of work every time I was sick, over the last twenty-three years, I would have had a lot of excessive absenteeism. Yes, I have been dealing with IBS for over twenty years. It is a horrible hand to be dealt. It has caused me to miss out on many social events, makes me feel miserable and makes deciding what to eat a tremendous task.

I have learned over the years that my body is very sensitive, even the tiniest variance can be costly. My diet mostly consists of the same foods over and over, so as not to upset the uncontrollable storms. If I eat too fast, too much or wait to long to eat, the consequences are colossal!

I must avoid spicy foods, fried foods, high fat foods, dairy, red meats and wheat, just to name a few. It limits my choice of foods greatly and it is a constant thought process as what to eat and what to avoid. I am still learning daily what works for me and what doesn’t.

As I deal with this burden, among many others, such as Fibromyalgia, Interstitial Cystitis, Restless Leg Syndrome, Neuropathy, Menopause, etc, etc. I often think “Why me?” But as I lay in bed that night, after the brutal storm had ended, I began to use that time to pray. It was an hour and a half before I felt like getting up to spend some time with my husband before he went to bed. That was a lot of time for prayer!

Of course, my mind would wonder and I was not praying the whole time, but for the most part, I was talking to the creator of the universe!! The time I spent in prayer that night was intimate time with God. That time was invaluable!! And I know that if I were not sick, I would not have spent that much time in prayer that day. So I choose to look at my hardships as a positive. I choose to let the works of God be displayed in me, I choose to be thankful for the raging storms in my life.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2015 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Crohn's Disease/IBS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.