The Whirlwind

This past year and a half has by far been the most trying, exciting, happiest and depressing times of my life.

In July of ’09 my husband and I moved from a large city, where I was raised, to a small town in the middle of nowhere for his medical residency. If that was not enough of a shock to my system being 5 hours away from my entire family, the first week of August would be enough to make your head spin. We were granted permanent custody of a child we had been caring for for the past year (she was almost 3), got her a puppy, and five days later I found out I was pregnant. WOW! My pregnancy was easy as pie, at least until Feb. ’10. At that point I was huge, and I had started having a lot of mucous and gas. I mentioned it to my OB and she said that it was probably just too much fat in my diet and that realistically there was nothing else that could be done until after I had the baby.

I was so uncomfortable with what was going on with my body t hat I didn’t even tell my husband. Then came the blood. I was just thinking that I was big and the baby was pushing on my colon and I was constipated with hemorrhoids. Finally when I started getting urgent needs to go to the bathroom and having constant diarrhea I told my husband. He was devastated that I had not told him before, but I was just thinking like the doctor said, nothing could be done till after baby. Baby Aidan finally came and since then I have been in a flare. Boy was it fun to have a breastfeeding newborn and the constant need to poop. I cannot tell you how many times that poor baby has been nursing while I am on the toilet. What a sight to see, I’m sure. I finally got diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis 10 weeks after he was born. Since then I have been on a constant stream of medications. I started on Asacol and steroids. It helped for a while but then it seemed to just plateaued after tapering off the steroids. The dr. wanted to put me right on Humira but my husband was adamant against that. We have since changed the medicine to Lialda and back on the steroids along with 6MP. It has gotten better but of course I still have my days. The nights and mornings are the worst, the worst is having to leave my kids to fend for themselves while I sprint to the bathroom. I am still having trouble dealing with the reality of what I am now living with.

I feel like I am a recluse. I am 28 with 2 small children and not a lot of support. I thought that I would be in the prime of my life but now I stay at home with my small kids not able to do much because the thought of leaving with the kids by myself to go anywhere can make me incredibly anxious. I am isolated and alone, my husband, who works at least 80 hours a week comes home to a house that is a wreck and a wife that is deliriously tired. I feel like a failure, my whole life I wanted to be a stay at home mom and susie homemaker. Ironically that is EXACTLY what I am, a STAY AT HOME MOM, but sadly without the energy to be susie homemaker. Hopefully, when this 6MP takes hold things will get a little back to normal. If not, I swear I am going to think about becoming a smoker. I just want to give my family the mother and wife that they deserve.

Submitted by “Stuck at Home Mom”