THE EDITOR TALKS WITH YOU

Like a lot of us, I used to think it was a terribly boring waste of time to listen to old folks’ organ recitals.

Naively, I must have thought good health was an entitlement. Unless I fell out of a tree and hurt myself, I was invulnerable.

Not any more. I even find myself talking with colleagues about our latest aches and pains and what we’re doing about them. This not an organ recital, I promise.

Yet it will give you some things I learned over the Father’s Day weekend in the hospital and in a bit of research since then.

HAVE YOU ever heard of Crohn’s disease?

I had not either but 74 million Americans suffer from some form of it.

It must have started for me more than 10 years ago. It would come on suddenly and felt at first like food poisoning or some other form of severe stomach ache.

Stomach pain relief pills didn’t help.

The pain was agonizing.

It felt like someone had stuck a hot poker in my guts and was twisting it.

The smell of food was repugnant.

I didn’t want to eat and couldn’t sleep.

I would tough it out, spending the night at the altar of St. John, giving up whatever I had eaten for what seemed like a week.

IT FINALLY grew so severe last week that it sent me to Lexington Medical Center.

None of us love illness or being forced to go to the hospital. That’s life, especially at my advanced age. Make the best of it.

I listen to my angels of mercy, the nurses and technicians who take care of me. They love to tell my ready ears their stories.

They talk about their loves and losses, their kids, their spouses, their marriages and divorces. They tell me about where they grew up, their parents and how they chose their health care careers.

They share one mission in common.

They know what they do is important to sick people in a lot of pain. They want to make them as comfortable as possible and that’s a huge challenge.

They work 12 hour days and I suspect it takes its toll. Some drive from Augusta, Newberry and even Charlotte.

They never show fatigue. They are there to comfort their patients who need them.

HERE’S WHAT I learned about Crohn’s diease in simple terms. It is a disease of the intestines. We are not sure how you contract it or even how to cure it yet. We do know how to deal with it and antibiotics help. I took them 3 times a day for a week.

Symptoms vary. Mine were nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, fatigue and inability to sleep more than an hour at a time.

My doctors were helpful. They explained what was going on inside me and that it might require surgery. I’ll spare you the painful details but it doesn’t sound like fun.

IF YOU ARE experiencing anything like this, look up Crohn’s disease online and learn what you can about it.

If it keeps up, don’t try toughing it out like I did. Seek medical advice.

Be thankful, too, that we have expert medical care. Many of our ancestors probably died of Crohn’s disease.

I would love to hear from you.

Email me at JerryBellune@yahoo.com

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