The Knees Strike Back

With three days to go until my surgery the past two weeks have been pretty awful, which is why I've not been updated the blog at all.

Around 12 days ago my knees started to swell up, as they've done many times before. My swelling joints are linked to the Crohn's. When my tummy is swollen, some of my joints like to join in and swell up too - share that inflammation around. I had thought it was weird that for the past two months, through everything my knees had been okay. It seems, they were in fact, lulling me in to a false sense of security until I thought I'd gotten away with it, before  BAM, they make their presence known. Once all the nasty swollen bit is cut out, I've been told my knees won't swell up anymore, which is great but doesn't help the situation I'm in right now.

After my knees had swelled up enough that they were getting pretty sore and very stiff I rang the flare clinic. In the past, this is what I've been told to do, it allows me to speak directly with a nurse from the rheumatology department who can then advise what I do next. I didn't hear back from them on the Friday and unfortunately it was then Bank Holiday weekend, meaning I wouldn't hear anything until at least the Tuesday. By Sunday morning my knees were huge, I think the biggest they have ever been. My left knee especially, which is normally the 'good' knee, was incredibly painful. I was being kept awake at night and was no longer able to really walk or even roll over in bed. I really wasn't sure what to do, with my op still 10 days away I was very worried that the state of my knees and inability to move would impact on my surgery. Without too many gory details, during the surgery they do need to move your body in to different positions to gain access to all the right areas. The fact my legs couldn't bend at all, was really worrying me. My Mum had spoken to a Pre-op nurse the week before who suggested I speak to the surgeon, which in reality is pretty impossible to do. We decided on Sunday morning to ring 111 for some advice after a truly horrendous night. It's always tricky with this service as they are not medical professionals on the other end of the phone and are just following a computer system which after lots of questions gives them the advice to give. This of course means that most of what they ask you is irrelevant and if you aren't then 'norm', its quite hard for them to do anything. In the end he sent me to an Out of Hours Dr service at the local hospital, I was in absolute agony and had to be wheel chaired in.

The Dr I saw was really lovely and tried his best to help but of course, the whole situation I'm in is so complicated, it's very difficult for anyone to come in and able to do something. He gave me some more strong painkillers, and told me what worsening symptoms to look out for. The next couple of days were awful and I felt very, very poorly, with my temperature spiking at 39. My Dad got really worried and contacted my surgeon who asked for me to go in to hospital later in the week to see the surgical and medical team. I panicked at this, really concerned the op would be postponed or that they'd admit me there and then, I hate staying in hospital so couldn't imaging anything worse. I spent the next three days in a constant state of anxiety as well as feeling very unwell. Although the swelling in my knees was starting to go down and weren't so painful, I felt like I was getting more and more unwell.

So Friday I travelled up to the hospital, with my Mum, where I saw a member of my surgeon's team, another Gastro consultant and the pre-op nurses. We were there for hours but I was seen by pretty much everyone there was to see. The good news is, I am fit enough for surgery. My knees have continued to go down on their own a bit and I'm able to at least walk better. The surgical team decided that because of this, from their perspective, surgery is okay to go. The consultant I saw is not my normal Dr and I've never met him before but he was fantastic. After listening to me speak, he asked whether I was a Dr myself, because of how well I articulated what was happening and pronounced everything, ha! I obviously thought this was brilliant!
He also showed me the report from my MRI, which I've never seen before. This showed that I have in his words, "a big abscess", or ball of infection. Although thats not great, in a way it was a relief to actually know why I'm feeling so poorly and in so much pain. Due to the amount of pain I'm in and how unwell I am, he prescribed me some antibiotics to try and get the infection under some control before the op. The abscess will be cut out during the operation as it's in the same area as the bad bit of bowel.

I've now been on the antibiotics for 48hours and they've definitely made a big difference to how I'm feeling, although still sick I don't feel nearly as awful as I did. This hopefully means I'll go in to the op in a better state than I might have done a few days ago.

So the surgery is just three sleeps away! I won't really be allowed to eat from Monday night, apart from something light before 7am on Tuesday, which will suck but my appetite isn't huge so I won't suffer too much. I obviously won't eat Wednesday and probably not Thursday so it's a good few days of no food at all. Mentally I think I'm as ready for the op as I can be. The next couple of days, I'll be taking it very easy and finalising everything Chroma wise before having a couple weeks off!
For now I'm just relieved the op is going ahead as planned and I'm not feeling so dreadful.

Onwards & upwards
XXX