Today was my strongest day. Last night I had a massage and I slept well. Today, I decreased from 35 to 30 mg of prednisone.
This evening I am having a little trouble with colon spasms and urgency to go, to the point of accidents. I call the on-call GI doc at VM and explain. I learn that tapering is specific to each patient and it depends alot on my tolerance of the symptoms; my body’s response to the lessing dose of steriods. This is going to be a sort of two step process — a little forward, a little back. The doc tells me the colon is extremely swollen and inflamed in spite of the medication and has little or no ability to hold contents. As the pred is decreased, if too fast then urgency increases and if symptoms cannot be tolerated its okay to go back up on the dose. If I feel this way in the morning, she says go back up to 40 mgs and talk to my GI on Monday for new instructions to taper down again. Hence, a little forward, a little back.
I learn today, its important to communicate, ask conscise questions and don’t dally. Patients who get better ask the hard questions and get clear answers. Now I am torn about the evening. I don’t want to have to get up every two hours, ugh! Well, guess I’ll have to see how it goes.
However, I am tolerating food well, drinking liquids (water with juice.) I have put back 2 lbs of the 9 lost in the hospital. The taper from 60 mgs to 30 mgs per day has diminished the anxiety, rage and depression significantly. Miracle drugs but god, the side effects are awful!
When I was in the hospital I could not really imagine what this week would be like. I was so afraid that I would not be able to get better and that I would have to return back. I am glad that I was able to accomplish this. This way my body will be strong and healthy, ready to support the surgery process.
I still hate that my colon will be removed. It is amazing to me how many surgeries are performed every day and that people just recover and resume their normal lives. It seems like no big deal when its happening to somebody else. Ha! ha!, but now that its ME!! Ugh! I am one of those people that worries about car accidents, getting hit while walking across the street, falling off a chair while at home, changing a light bulb. I worry about things that could happen to us during the normal course of every day life and I am really big on personal safety. Always use a ladder, always follow the safety instructions, keep up on cpr/first aid training.
