My Crohn's Nightmare

Anyone who has Crohn's is living a sort of nightmare to begin with. But each of us has our own personal nightmare as well.

My biggest Crohn's nightmare is that it will eventually become intestinal cancer. Intestinal cancer killed my father when he was 65, and it went undetected, despite multiple batteries of every imaginable test for over a year. He didn't have Crohn's, though. I do have Crohn's, and one possibility, albeit a rare one, for every Crohn's patient is the development of cancer, partly because Crohn's impairs the immune system, making you more susceptible to cancer, and partly because of the constant inflammation and irritation of the bowels.

In my nightmare, I first will have surgery and lose about half my intestines. Then the pathologists will tell me that they found that the inflamed and constricted sections they removed are riddled with cancer, and it's too late to do anything about it. Crohn's will lead me to an uncomfortable (to put it mildly) and untimely death. Sometimes I dream my Crohn's nightmare; mostly I have it every time I visit my gastroenterologist to discuss the status of my Crohn's disease.

Another waking nightmare for me is the frequent colonoscopies that Crohn's patients must have. The first one I had, back in 1983, was done without benefit of sedation or anesthesia, and I honestly thought I was going to die. It's not so bad now; I can request anesthesia, although it is rarely completely covered by insurance. It's worth the cost, though, to be unaware of the nightmare of an inflexible object forcing its way through my intestines.

But my worst Crohn's nightmare, colon or intestinal cancer, is always present in the back of my mind, no matter how often I tell myself I'm being irrational, and no matter what I'm doing to make sure it doesn't happen. I guess that's why it's called a nightmare.