So of course there can always be complications with an illeostomy bag, even if it's not directly Crohn's related you can still have a problem. That little pooper is only so big so if you swallow whole pieces of food or quarters or something chances are you will end up in a jackpot. Unfortunately this was the case for me Thursday night. After a trip to the local Cinnabon/Food Court at Menlo Park mall I woke up the next day and realized that I had barely passed any food from the night before, which is usually never the case...I usually wake up like twice in the middle of the night to empty my shit just so I don't have to worry about waking up being sauteed (sp?) in it. So I woke up on Friday, didn't completely realize yet, went out to do some work and stopped to get breakfast while I was out. By like 2pm I'm starting to feel some stomach cramps and I look to see one of the scariest things I have seen wrong with my body in a while...
...a severe lack of shit. An illeostomy bag should NEVER really look that clean unless you haven't eaten in like a day and/or you just put a new one on. This pic is actually taken from Friday night, but this was what I was looking at all day.
However, cramping does not really get that intense or bad and of course me thinking I can fix everything by myself I google stoma obstructions and learn that they can pass on their own within 6-8 hours, but if they don't by then you should seek medical attention. I keep doing some reading even though the pain still is not even really there except for maybe like five minutes out of every sixty, and I find a tip that if you feel you have an obstruction and it might possibly be near the end of your intestine/beginning of your stoma, you can stick a part of your fingertip in your stoma to try and break up some of the food.
A few hours later, a combination of my fear of returning to the hospital for the fourth time combined with the amount of marijuana in my body at this moment of time lead to some of the sickest fucking pictures ever.
Ready and...
Fire! Hell yeah. Even though I was slightly worried at this point in time I still had to take advantage of this photo op and send a text to a few friends. Plus this is the most action I've really gotten in a while from anything so it was def a fun time.After a few minutes of finger wiggling to no avail, I pack it up and head home. By now it's like 4pm and I have a show this night in north NJ.
Keep in mind that although I knew I had a possibility of going to the hospital, I'm not really worried at all. The pain by now is at most like 10 percent of what it was the other times I was hospitalized, so I'm really feeling fine and walking around and stuff. I was at least smart enough this day to NOT eat anything after breakfast and pass up on buffalo wings for lunch. For the rest of the day I'm drinking plenty of water to try and flush everything out.
At the show I think I'm feeling alright and then suddenly walk outside and puke up all the water I just drank. Slightly stubborn I feel like I still might have a chance at passing this thing and decide that I will go home right after we play which is like in twenty minutes anyway. During our set I'm feeling pretty alright until towards the end, one of the last songs I'm playing really weak (but still almost in time!) and as I'm playing I fucking puke up water all over my snare drum. The greater part about this was that it was so much that as I'm hitting my drum it is all splashing up in my face. After this song we wrap it up and I head home with my friends. I'm still actually feeling really okay but I know I should try and take care of this. After a last attempt of trying to take a bath and relax, we decide I should go to the hospital after my sister walks into the bathroom and I'm standing up naked and puking all over my dick. I put a new bag on, make sure I grab a camera and things, and we're off.
So around 11 pm/midnight I'm in the hospital chilling out. I remember as I walk in the ER drop off I feel the urge to puke and I go up to a garbage can and apologetically tell the sick people around it: "excuse me, I'm really sorry...I have to throw up" ralphralphralph a few minutes later after a bunch of people leave from being grossed out I am on my way towards the ER. I was really only puking up water and maybe some bile, but I guess watching a stranger throw up is a little strange to do, unless you're soneone who watches awful things on the internet.
...Which brings me to this video. This is me waiting to get dispatched into a room upstairs on the adoloscent floor. The video is a few minutes long so if you just wanna see the good stuff I would fast foward a little bit. This is an NG Tube (nasal gastro), being inserted up my nose and down into my stomach. Fortunately I have the fucking coolest sister ever and she hid the camera under her sweatshirt and got this footage.
Sorry if that's a bummer to anyone or a little sad! I've really had fairly high spirits most of my stay here. If you see me sticking my tongue out in this video, that is not being extremely sick, but that is my effort to try and be the funny guy and make sexy faces while they fuck my nose with a plastic hose. I think I explained what this tube is like in my first blog, but as a refresher: it's there to suck the shit out of my
stomach, and it feels like you have a popsicle stick in your throat. The tube sucks up bile blood mucus and any blockage and sucks it into a nice tidy bin where you can add a tap and serve it to any of you friends.What was kind of a bummer was that this tube and this obstruction caused some awkward pressure buildup and interfered with my diaphragm somehow and gave me a bad case of the hiccups that I had for probably about 40% of my first few days here. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and just start hiccuping.
After I get this tube in I'm off to get a CatScan. As you might be able to hear in the video I'm on the "no drink or eat" diet so they pump the formula down my tube so there is good contrast on the tests. Fortunately I held it down right up until about 10 seconds after the scan, this is me in the hallway after.
Yum yum gotta love that gritted ass attempt at a smile!Okay let's fast forward a little bit, because nothing really happens for the next day or two...which is maybe something to even talk about. It gets a little worse for the next day and a half...I'm still walking and moving around but the pain becomes a little more intense. It's still nothing compared to what it ever was, but it's starting to get bothersome. This time in the hospital, I was a little more open to taking painkiller drugs to deal with some of the pain, because really after four times you don't want to deal with this shit any more haha. I still DID pass it up plenty of times, and I probably only got morphine like 4 times and that's it, compared to people who would milk the shit out of my situation and just be fucked up all day I think I'm alright...however I did think I was a ghost with "butter hands" at one point and I woke up later and had no idea what was going on.
A highlight of those two days was that the old associate of my old GI doctor came in, the one we chose not to see anymore...and the one I think I wrote about previously a few blogs ago and said something like "fuck you". He was like "what happened? we were scheduled to come and then you cancelled!" And I was so happy that I got to tell him that I started seeing another doctor and I thought the situation was handled very maturely especially on my end because this guy was kind of a jerk but I just told him the deal. He said it was fine and that he wishes the best and said he was gonna find the GI resident for the hospital who was taking care of me and give them the scoop so they can help me more.
He then leaves and comes back 10 seconds later with the female GI resident that def had some respect for me since I usually know what I'm talking about when it comes to Crohn's and we had a good talk earlier that day... and he pretty much just tries to make me look like a dick head, calls me a "puttz" for going to the hospital so late the 3rd time that I got a preforation, and calls me a "rock star" because I left for tour a few days after coming out of the hospital the first time. There's a difference between being parently and being a fucking asshole, and I really don't think you are either of my parents you fucking tool. I was totally content with where we left off two minutes ago and I was planning on never having to see you face again, but I guess if you need the last word to an 18 year old kid that's totally fine. Fuck you schmuck.
For the rest my time the next few days some of my friends kept company with me and hung out which was great. I didn't try to tell a lot of people I was here again...not like I didn't want to tell people I was in the hospital, but really I wasn't trying to. There's a lot going on right now, and this shit just gets in the way I feel like. I always know I'll be fine especially with my loved ones around, and it's not like my friends aren't important! It's just this
happened four times, I know the drill, and I know my friends care a lot. A bunch of them still came to visit and did nice things like stay for long and talk, send nice texts, bring video games, and even a porno magazine (Black Lust baby!). Even the whole Maroney family was with me in some kind of way! I texted Mike Maroney Photography(R) this picture and told him to tell his dad I said thanks since I got to stay in his sick ass sponsored hospital room.Hospital stays for me aren't as scary as they are for a lot of people. Just because I'm in the hospital doesn't mean I'm deathly sick or dying or fucked for life...it means that I can't take care of my problem on my own and need all those neat facilities and gadgets the hospital has to offer. I was telling my sis "dude if I had IV and a suction thing and some steroids and drugs I would totally be able to handle this, I just don't. " The medical plan was pretty similar to the plans the other times, bowel rest, then some steroids, then some antibiotics. Of course if this shit didn't pass this time it would result in another surgery, not as severe really as the other one, but still surgery. A day and a half in, my doctors start getting worried that nothing was passing still. Then on monday afternoon, I finally pass a respectable amount of liquids. That night I walk around the floor with my sister for a while and feel everything breaking up, I even wake up in the middle of the night from a huge gas blurt let out from my stoma and just say "holy shit noelle did you hear that?"
The next day (today!) I go for another walk and then the GI doctor on this floor comes to talk to me to try and work out a plan to try and get more to pass from my body. Her planning is interrupted by a huge ass fart and me filling up like more than half of my bag with a huge ejaculatory diarrheal 14 second poop shot in which she stops talking and we both just stare at my stoma. Right after this, she stops, smiles and says "okay never mind you're good!" And just leaves the room laughing out loud. I wish I could of recorded how much shit came out of me, I mean we recorded the number since we had to, like 600CCsor something, but I wish I taped it haha.
More friends came to hang today, magicians came and did magic. And then we finally got to take this NG tube out. Hopefully this video is a little more uplifting, I keep getting that clown-pulling-an-endless-ribbon-out-of- his-mouth vibe from this footage but it's so great!
Better days are coming, they always are. Tom I prob will be put on liquids and maybe solids and the latest I should be out of here by is probably Thursday night! Just in time for the weekend! PARTY!
