Yesterday, I wrote about the initial days of my illness and the diagnosis. Well things were not all that easy as I mentioned.
When I noticed the first symptoms, blood in stool, I was a bit scared. Then, when I had to rush to the toilet several times a day, I was getting concerned. Blood and mucus in the stool, is something that I was not used to seeing. Initially when my Dr told me it could be due to an infection, I was kind of satisfied that it’s something that will go away shortly. But when days started to become weeks, but still no signs of symptoms of going away, i was getting jittery.
After 3 weeks, when my gastroenterologist asked me for family history and if any one had suffered from any form of IBD (Irritable Bowel Disease), I said no but an uncle colorectal cancer. When I saw the look on his face change, and he immediately suggesting me to get a colonoscopy done, that’s when I thought something was serious. I asked him, if it was anything to be worried, he said no but just get the test done immediately.
As I had mentioned yesterday, the preparation of the test was something unimaginable. Even in my bad mood, I will not think of this for my worst enemy. On the day of the test, the surgeon said he will give me a mild general anesthetic I was thankful that my brother had accompanied me. Thambi udayaan padaikku anjaan. By now, my mother was afraid to send me alone to dr and had my brother accompany me on all dr visits 🤣🤦♂️
Finally, after knowing that i did not have cancer and with a big weight off my chest, we (remember, my brother was accompanying me) visited my gastroenterologist once again. The dr went through the test reports in detail. He was happy that it was not cancerous but said that it was a bit of concern that it was Ulcerative Colitis.
He said that this disease is an autoimmune disease and there is no cure. He explained in detail about it. Since my father had arthritis, i knew what autoimmune disease was. He said that the symptoms will keep appearing once in a while and I will have to be on medication for prolonged period of time. He sad stress alleviates the symptoms and asked me if I was having stress at my work. I just laughed it and said I was happily retired for almost 3 years. He said may be that itself was stressful. He then asked me if I was doing pranayama and gayathri japam daily. When i said no, he said if you were doing these, you will not have got this condition and advised me to do meditation for 30 minutes daily after writing a prescription for 6 months 😁😁😁 He said he meditated for 1 hour daily that keeps him stress free.
He told me there will be periods when symptoms will be very bad (flare up) and when things will be normal (remission). So, be prepared. I still remember my brother’s comment, i thought we were coming to a dr instead looks like we met a lifestyle guru.
As we were walking out, I thought I was prepared to face this condition. But was I?
More later…
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