So, I'm with my husband at the hospital, waiting for them to call us back so that he can start his first infusion of Remicade.
Remicade. Here's to hoping it's the cure-all it's been touted as.
But, I should back up.
Husband has had gastro issues for as long as I've known him. The year after we got married, he had 3 kidney stones, which is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Last year, while we were living in Atlanta, he started having issues with hemmeroids. About September of last year, he then developed an abcess/fistula.
October we moved to our current city, and new jobs. This came with better health insurance than we'd previously had access to. The doctors here looked at his history including some fairly significant weight loss that the doctors in Atlanta had completely ignored.
The conclusion is Crohn's. An infilmation of the upper and/or lower intestines. Crohn's causes weight loss due to malnutrition, fistulas, kidney stones and hemmeroids.
He was officially diagnosed about 3 weeks ago by a full colonoscopy.
Since then, he's been on steroids, thankfully with no obvious side effects, which brings us back to today.
A 40 minute IV of Benadryl to prep, and now 3.5 hours of the Remicade.
I hope the Remicade works as expected since he has to go through this again in two weeks. Then six weeks after that, then every 8 weeks until it stops working, or research finally gives Crohn's patients a new option.
This fucking sucks.
No comments:
Post a Comment