TPN | Patient Commando

I was diagnosed in 2003 after 88 days in the hospital, the physician said he was treating me for ulcerative colitis but thought it was crohn’s so I signed for exploratory surgery. He said we would take a section of my colon or do an biopsy..let’s try a look, then. I awoke with an ileostomy, and had 5 more sugeries (not the pig intestine transplant that I’d hoped for or the stem cell transplant suggested) but I no longer have an exit, so this is not reversible.

I’m on Cimzia injections, still deal daily with pain but am grateful for every day that I live well. He’s now considering TPN for the rest of my life and I’m only 48? Seems drastic, but I met a man on a mission trip in Lufkin, Texas, last summer (while building wheelchair ramps with United Methodist ARMY youth volunteers…he’s in his 70’s and watched his grandchildren grow up for the past 14 years. I can do this, if I have to!

I hope to be an inspiration to others, I’m a psychologist and getting my doctorate in Autism Spectrum disorders to work toward my future…however, long or short that may be. My mantra is…I can [...] continue the story

By Jon Reiner

This feels so illicit. And stupid. But really, I must lick this french fry. I’m not asking to eat it, mind you, that wouldn’t be good. I just want to lick it. Taste its salt. I cower in the kitchen, hiding from my wife and boys, who are out there, on the other side of the door, enjoying a sumptuous dinner, like eaters do — devouring what’s delicious, picking at what is not, saving room for dessert — while I starve.

Yes, I’m starving. There’s been nothing for two months now. No food, no drink, nothing in my mouth except the air I keep sucking. It would be plain to say the hunger is driving me mad, because it is. I crave food more than sex. The smell and touch of food can drop me to my knees. Food left me suddenly, in the chaos of emergency surgery, and, empty of food, I think about it constantly, an obsession that magnifies the ordinary into the surreal. A simple french fry is a wonder, an uneaten crust of bread salvation; something as unattainable as a fried egg, life itself. This trance is not healthy, or normal, but then those two [...] continue the story

My daily Companion…Crohn’s

The Man Who Couldn’t Eat