Oh dear, where do I begin?

I came to the ER at around 9 am on Christmas morning with a fever and severe abdominal pains. I'd been having pains on and off for almost two weeks but on Christmas Eve it was really unbearable so I stuck it out for the gift unwrapping then headed to the hospital.

An X-ray, cat scan, and other assessments led to an initial diagnosis of...drum roll...constipation. Bad girl, eat more fiber. So they checked me in for four liters of oral laxatives (not kidding) and, oh joy, continuous enemas. Plus some crud by IV to stir up my stomach a little more. This regimin led to almost continous vomiting and no results on the other side. So they figured I just wasn't cooperating and stuck an NG tube up my nose and down into my stomach. Turns out I can vomit even with a tube in to suction out the contents of my stomach.

After about 48 hours of this chaos where I felt like I was on death's doorstep, they sent me for a colonoscope which showed that I have a complete obstruction in my colon. We're waiting for the biopsy results, but given my age and the sudden onset, they feel it's unlikely to be a malignancy.

Most likely scenario is Chrone's disease (I'm not sure on spelling, can't google well from the blackberry). Right now they don't think I'm in imminent danger of rupturing my colon. I've been without food or water since Christmas Eve so they put in a central line today and should start pumping me with some nutritional muck tomorrow.

We tentatively have surgery scheduled for Friday morning (surgeon on vacation till then) to resect the closed off portion of my colon. They aren't fond of doing the surgery when the colon is full of you-know-what, but we don't have a whole lot of options since my system doesn't have any way of clearing itself out right now. So they may or may not be able to put the pieces back together again which could leave me with a temporary colostomy for 3-6 months. But unless I rupture or it's cancer, they've indicated that a permanent colostomy is unlikely.

So what can I say? I'm scared, praying it's not cancer. Praying that I don't become septic. Praying that I can go home to my sweet babies who I miss so dearly. I probably shouldn't spill my dirty medical problems to the internet, but I know many of you care and I ask you to pray the same prayers with me.

Things are fine at home. My mom is arranging for a personal leave to help out at the house so Sean can continue to be here bt my side. Sean's mom was a trooper watching all 3 kids the last five days. I'll try to post a brief update here if there's news, but just be optimistic and assume no news is good news.

Oh, and whenever I finish up with all this silly business, apparently I have a hernia that needs surgery and some lesions on my liver that need an MRI. Thank God I look so stunning in a hospital gown.