Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Ulcerative Colitis

Wow. What a title for a post, huh? I guess I could say, holey shit!, and that would give you more idea of what has been troubling me. Anyhow, I apologize for the lack of blog posts in the past six months, as I've been fairly busy, and apparently pretty sick at least for the past two months, and quite possibly much longer than that.

"You're intestine looks like somebody ran a cheese grader through it," was pretty much what the doctor told me following my colonoscopy last week. After that I was whisked off to the hospital for four days of IVs and meds. I'm home now and feeling much better, but still on some serious meds for a couple weeks.

So, what is colitis? It's an inflammation of the large intestine caused by the immune system reacting to something. The biggest problem seems that they haven't isolated what that "something is." Anyhow, good news is that the disease of fairly isolated to one area of the intestine and seems to be manageable - by keeping the swelling down through some sort of medication. And from what I understand, it's not too much medication... We'll see. As I said, I'm feeling better for now.

I really just wanted to thank everybody who has told me I was in their thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. It always makes me feel good when you hear from so many nice people when you go through a tough spell.

Cheers.
R

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ralph, i still think that you should get a second opinion. Sounds like you have reggaemilitis to me.

Ralph said...

Ahh, no, but catching some reggaemiltis before the end of the summer may be in order.

Cheers.

R