BJ's Story

My name is Bobbie Jean but you can call me BJ.

On September 1, 1998 I noticed blood in my stool. There was no pain at all, but I found this strange (blood in my stool). I went to the doctor and they said I needed to have the scope thing done, we all know what that is. When they were finished they told me I had ulcerative colitus and they put me on 20 mg of Steroids and Dipentum. The bleeding stopped and life became normal again.

I really enjoy life, I have four children and a great husband. Every year we go deer hunting, fishing, crabbing and we play softball in the summer. We are a very active family. I am 43 years old today and I feel great, but I went through hell to get there.

Lets go back to my last flare-up. It was on July 1, 2000. Again, I noticed blood in my stool but I did not worry too much. I just figured I would get back on steriods and things would get back to normal soon (Boy, was I wrong!).

I started to bleed very very badly through the rectum. I was really scared but did not let my family know this. The doctors put me on 40 mg of steriods and three steriod enemas a day. At this time my family and I took off for deer hunting - we were camping for about 8 days. During this time I never left my sleeping bag. The pain in my stomach was so bad I thought I was going to die. The sound that was coming out of my butt was horrible. My husband was so worried but I just told him I would go to the doctor when we got home. So we went home and to the doctor I went. They bumped my steriods up to 80 mg a day plus the three enemas.

In the next five weeks I lost 37 pounds and had only three units of blood left in my body. I refused to go to the hospital because I had no Medical insurance. I would lay on my front room floor (that's where I felt the best) with my face in the carpet. The only time I would get up was to go to the bathroom where more life would run out of me. As I lay on the floor I would say "I have to get up and cook dinner" but I could not remember how to get up. My kids would walk all around me saying they were hungry and I would say "dad will fix dinner when he gets home from work". Soon dad would walk throught the door, pick me up and lay me on the couch and fix dinner for the kids. As I lay there I couldn't remember what my past life was like. I was dieing and I knew it but I couldn't remember how to save myself at this point.

As time went on I could no longer walk to the bathroom. Most of the time I just went in my pants and when my husband got home he would help me take a bath. Every night he would lay there and cry - I could hear him when he thought I was sleeping. Then one day while he was at work, I woke up on the kitchen floor and I had no life in me at all. I somehow found the phone in my hand and I called for help.

That day I was put in the hospital where they again did the scope thing. When I saw the look on my doctor's face I knew the news was bad but at that point I did not care, just make me better. The doctor said I had thousands of tumors and the colon had to be removed along with my rectum. Boy, I cried and cried and cried until I could not cry any more, I was wiped out. They fed me with tubes for nine days and then they did the sugery. At this point I had not eaten anything for about nine weeks, food was the enemy.

Well, needless to say surgery hurt like hell. I am still not over it but I can eat anything I want, whenever I want. I have gained back 35 pounds in eight weeks. My kids are happy again and so is my husband. I am so glad I had this surgery, it's nice to be back among the living again. I would not take my rectum or colon back if they gave it to me brand new. It had been such a pain in the ass for so long, I say good riddance to it. My surgery was done on October 17, 2000. There is so much more pain I want to talk about along with the affects of the surgery, but I think this is fine for now.

If you need to have this sugery I say go for it, don't waste any time like I did and don't be afraid. Pain is just a state of mind and it will soon be all over and you will be fine like me.

God bless,

Love BJ

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