Rockstar's health hisory

Here is the description of my saga:

I am not on any medications. Occasionally I take Tylenol.

I am allergic to penicillin. When I take it I break out in a rash.

When I was 17 (1989) I had an appendectomy. The resulting pathology report determined that I had Crohn’s disease. (Up until the results of said report, I was told that my appendix must have ruptured months previous and I had miraculously survived. One out of ten people ever.)

I was on Prednisone for a period of time, regardless the Crohn’s continued to develop, and when I was 20 (1992) I had a resection – in total a foot was removed from the area of the end of my small intestine and the beginning of my large intestine.

After this surgery I was very asymptomatic of Crohn's. I did not take any medication, or have any digestive troubles, but approx once a year would have a visit to the hospital with blockage symptoms. (Pain, vomiting, high white blood cell count, dry mouth) Typically the symptoms would last anywhere from eight to twenty hours. Once I was given an IV and pain and nausea meds the blockage would dissipate. These episodes were always attributed to the Crohn's. (Never once was the word "adhesion" voiced by a single doctor.)

On Feb 6th 2004, I had a blockage that did not dissipate after 24 hours, and it was decided that I be subjected to an exploratory surgery to diagnose and hopefully repair the cause.

The doctor found an adhesion from my earlier resection to be the cause of distress, and fixed the problem. He also noted that my bowels looked quite healthy (aside from the recent stress) and seemed Crohn’s free. At this point it was determined that I had been in fact in remission from Crohn’s disease for over ten years and had been suffering from the effects of the adhesion.

The incision from this surgery did not heal properly, and I ended up developing a hernia of approx 7cm in length. (This hernia was diagnosed when it caused another blockage - and subsequent pain involved - emergency room visit.) For those of you unschooled in medical ways, that is a HUGE hernia.

My hernia repair surgery was performed on August 13th, 2004 by Dr Wallack (general surgeon) and Dr Kolker (plastic surgeon). They reconstructed my abdominal wall using Aloderm.

I healed as expected, and experienced no further problems until March 12th, 2005, when I awoke with abdominal pain. As the pain progressed and vomiting began, I headed to the emergency room for care. The symptoms dissipated after nineteen hours, and I was sent home with the diagnosis of a new adhesion, and instructions to make a follow up appt with my surgeon.