Wife is currently in the hospital
Hi everyone - I'm trying to find some help and advice. Sorry for such a long post. My wife and I (together five years, married just under one) have been trying to contain and manage her crohns disease for a long time now. Obviously she does a lot of the real suffering, I just try to do all the things I can to take as much of the load as possible. She's been in and out of the hospital, but we've been fortunate and it's mostly out. She's responded really well to biologic drugs like remicade and humira, and those drugs have really changed her life. And mine!
She's currently in the hospital and it's pretty scary, to me. It doesn't seem to be an active crohns flare, since she doesn't have all the secondary symptoms she's come to expect: extreme fatigue, joint pain, running to the bathroom ten times a day (she finally got that symptom, but had excruciating pain for several days first). All of the tests that she's had done have come back normal, and I mean ALL of them: CT scan, ultrasound, all the lab tests. We're waiting on an MRE result and she has a colonoscopy tomorrow, but I don't really know if we'll find anything. I know her doctors are good, and we're at an excellent hospital, but still - she has agonizing pain and nausea, and continually hearing the doctors say "We haven't found anything wrong with you" is crushing her. And me, to be honest. She can't even drink water without getting pain and feeling nauseous.
I know you're not doctors, and I'm not asking for medical advice, but I'm sure a lot of you have gone through situations like this. How do you stay sane? How do you stay positive and keep pushing forward when the doctors can't find anything? My wife has never had normal symptoms for digestive diseases, and she has some anxiety too. So when the doctors tell her tests are negative, her immediate reaction is "It's all in my head" and while I know that's false, I myself don't have anxiety and don't know how to help her deal with those thoughts.
Any advice on how to help her get through this is really appreciated. I just want her to get healthy and happy...
Posted Feb 25, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC