I never thought I’d write that title to a post. After exhausting all medications and turning to hookworms for my Crohn’s disease treatment. But a small dose of Celexa, an SSRI anti-depressant, and Ambien at night has resulted in a glimmer of hope and 5 nights of 8-10 hours of sleep. Thank God.
Before anyone writes a criticism of my using these drugs whilst pregnant, let me assure you that I don’t want to hear it. I am fully capable of researching every aspect of my care, and having read miles of literature claiming I’d have a malformed fetus with withdrawal problems, I finally went to a wonderful doctor at Planned Parenthood and was assured that many, many women have had normal pregnancies on Zoloft, and Celexa was probably safe as well, Ambien was a class B as was the Benedryl I was using to try to sleep, and a healthy mom makes a healthy child. So I gave in, took 1/4 a dose of the Celexa, and finally feel like I may not have to kill myself after all.
I am now walking every afternoon, when the anxiety takes a grip to my heart and convinces me that I will never be well, to go by the river, watch the daredevils at the skatepark. Wonder if one day one of them will be my son. Watch the egrets stand one legged in the tidal waters, seagulls squacking in large groups. Climb the hill that doesn’t even make me sweat. Cross the trestle to the Boardwalk, and take my shoes off, walk in the sand to the ocean, sit. And meditate. Force my negative mind to shut up. Every time I fail and open my eyes, the horizon beckons, the beautiful blue, blue ocean. Surfers, skimboarders. Gleeful dogs and children remind me that happiness exists, right here in front of my eyes, and I close my eyes again and try to think of nothing, banish the evil thoughts that a lifetime of Crohn’s has etched rivulets in my mind
And that little 1/4 a dose of seratonin is helping. I feel it already. I may yet be happy. There’s a walk every day to go on and the same grey egret has been there, 3 days in a row, the exact same place. Standing on one leg. Looking under the bridge. Thinking egret thoughts.
I’m still having diarrhea sometimes. Now I’m getting nauseous. I oscillate between what the hell am I doings and wow, I’m finally well enough to be pregnant! And then I worry…. now no one will treat me. What if I lose my worms? I must incubate soon and infect my husband, have a resevoir donor at hand…can’t get anasthesia. I try not to go there, but my restless mind is going to take enormous will to control, but enormous will I have. I have more will than hope, but maybe in a few weeks, that too will mend.
I catch my reflection in car windows, and wow, I look strong. If nothing else, this disease, this treatment, this life, has made me an old woman in a late 30’s body. I may be lacking in the wisdom, but I have more strength than almost anyone I know.
I’m still alive. I’m sleeping. I’m still pregnant. Last I checked, I still have worms. I really have an amazing life. Take away the Crohn’s, and anyone would envy me. I try hard to remember that. Tomorrow I’ll walk again.
3 Comments
encouraging thoughts. congratulations on finding them, and on finding a way to settle those incorrigible sleepless nights and incessant anxious days. i hope that your heart continues to settle and that your mind follows it.
I’m glad you’re open-minded enough to see the benefits of conventional and alternative treatments. A lot of folks become true believers in alternative meds when mainstream medicine fails them, but science is ultimately good even if it takes a long time. I’m glad you’re finally starting to feel better. I still want to try this for my own health issues, and would love to be a second reserve donor when you get the incubation together. I’m unlikely to need anaesthesia any time soon, and would certainly be willing to stay away from anything that would kill worms if it meant not being in pain all the time.
I feel more urgency to incubate, so will step up that process. There’s a strange aspect to this therapy, that you wish everyone would just go ahead and try it. It’s been lonely being one of the few with Crohn’s who even knows about it, educating my expert GI at UCSF. Friends with allergies, other diseases, have so much revulsion to the thought of some tiny little worms, that they accuse me of being a worm evangelist, shuddering at the thought. They figure I did it out of desperation, but I would have tried this 20 years ago as a teenager, if I knew about it. What’s their problem? It’s really no big deal. We swallow billions of bacteria in our VSL#3, why are worms so horrific?
I look forward to the bulk of us being resevoir donors. If only for the comfort that we are not alone.
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