The Start by Stacy's Mum

I am going to be writing this blog to keep everyone updated, that wants to be kept in the loop of how Stacy is doing.

It's been a hard 20 years for her.  When she was a teenager Stacy kept on telling me her stomach hurt and my silly rule was no temperature my kids went to school.  I took her to the Doctor constantly and he kept on saying it was nothing.  

Well it wasn't nothing.  When Stacy was 22 it was discovered that she had Crohns Disease.  So she was never telling me she had stomach ache when she didn't and boy did I ever feel bad.

She spent some time in Watford General Hospital under a Gastro man (who shall remain nameless so I don't get sued or anything and boy would I ever like to sue him).  It turned out that she had the Crohns in the small bowel instead of the large bowel which is another ball game completely.  You see if you have it in the large bowel they can give you an Ileostomy which would give the bowel time to recover.  But that was 20 years ago and things have really moved on from there. 

Her doctor at Watford labelled her a hypochondriac and every time she went into hospital with a stomach ache they just automatically put her on Steroids.  Now steroids are a wonder drug of sorts but like everything else there is a downside as well as an upside to them.  Stacy was given these drugs ad hoc when she wasn't even having a Crohns attack.  

G-d forbid they would have done a blood test before giving them.  But no!  As soon as she went into A&E the steroids were given intravenously and we were never told of the side effects and to be honest I never even looked on here to see what side effects, if any, there were.  Once they are started they have to finish the course or 5 days of intravenous steroids followed by tapering off doses by pills over a three or four week period.

So what did the steroids do, I hear you ask?  Well she now has, via the overuse of them:

1. Osteoporosis
2. Fibromyalgia
3. Losing her teeth because she has no bone density from the Avascular Necrosis
4. Avascular Necrosis - this is basically the death of the bones in her hips. The surgeon at Watford General has replaced the left hip twice and it still isn't right.  He also left her hipless for 9 months because it got infected and he removed it and didn't put it back until we complained to PAL. 
5. Rheumatoid Arthritis  

She has other things wrong thanks to the steroids but I just can't remember them, sorry.  I know I'm a rotten mother, what can I say!

I will explain about the PVOD tomorrow because she is really poorly today and I can't write anymore.  But thank you if you are reading this.