New Diagnosis: IBS Unrelated to Chemo

The photo is of a couple of Thai monkeys

with the great pointed hairdos at the San Diego Zoo

(there's one behind the most visible one) .

Tuesday was one hell of a day. I awoke at 1 am with abdominal cramps coming in waves lasting a minute and a half, about every 6-10 minutes. I laid there in the dark next to Howard, who was sleeping, willing them to go away, but they didn’t. They only increased in intensity. By 3:30 am I was yowling in pain with each wave, and keeping Howard awake as well. He was very concerned. I was in total misery. By 5:30, since this newest ordeal showed no signs of abatement, he called Northwest Cancer Specialists to speak to the physician on call. However, he was put on hold, waiting for the answering service to respond. He tried several times in the next few hours to get through, each time with the same non-results until finally, at 8:30, he got through to the answering service. Dr. V phoned back immediately.

We had hoped to hear, “Oh, yeah, this happens all the time to people having chemo and here’s what you do about it,” but instead he advised us to go to the ER at Good Sam. I couldn’t imagine getting myself into a car and to the ER, but with Andrine and Howard’s help I got dressed, got a bag packed, and we were off.

Once there, they sent me to a triage room. I tried to stay sitting in the chair to answer questions while the waves of spasms hit me. Suddenly I felt horribly nauseous and asked for a basin. I was provided with a plasic bag with a rigid rim and proceeded to retch, even though there was nothing to bring up save foamy saliva. The triage nurse left and I no longer felt the need to keep up appearances by trying to sit in a chair. I was too exhausted. I laid down in the floor for the next wave of pain.

The triage nurse loaded me in a wheelchair and rolled me to an ER bed. My port was accessed, but it didn’t work so it was accessed again. I’m never an easy draw, even with a port. (I just took a shower and discovered that the first time, the nurse missed my port entirely. No wonder it didn’t work.) After the second access, they couldn’t draw from it, but at least they could put stuff in. The nurse drew blood out of my arm for a number of tests. They hooked me up to an IV, gave me saline, and eventually morphine while they tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

The morphine was a good idea. I could still feel the cramping, but without the extreme pain. Given my sensitivity to drugs, they gave me a tiny dose and worked up to 75% normal dose. Hmm. That 75% figure again. Anyway, now it was time to figure out what the hell was going on. According to the doctor, there were a few possibilities: a kidney stone, an intestinal blockage, or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). She sent in the orders for a CAT scan. The good news was that I wasn’t neutropenic. I had been worried because my blood pressure was 91/38 and it tends to get low when I'm neutropenic.

The morning drifted on while I was in my morphine fog. Howard sat by my side for most of it. I was relieved to be out of pain. Exhausted by the night’s ordeal, I dozed on and off. I was given some barium mixture to drink to make my insides show up on the CAT scan. Finally, at 12:30, Howard left for home to join a conference call. Shortly after that I was wheeled to the CAT scan room. (Ah, there it was, my pram! Be careful what you ask for.) The CAT scan machine was sort of a huge square donut with a round hole in the center. It was a lot less scary than an MRI, no feeling of enclosure, hence no feeling of claustrophobia. The procedure took only a few minutes.

More time passed, then the doctor came in with her verdict. I had an inflamed section of bowel, which means I had IBS or Crohn’s disease. It’s very unusual for someone in her fifties to be suddenly diagnosed with IBS. No, it is totally unrelated to the chemo. Treatment? Well, there’s no treatment. We’ll give you a prescription for painkillers. The doctor also mentioned that Dr. V said that I had elevated liver enzymes earlier (news to me) that indicated liver inflammation. She also said that Dr. V concurred that the IBS was unrelated to chemo. She recommended that I follow up with a gastro-enterologist when I finish with chemo.

So, it’s unrelated to chemo? I spend my whole life with a great digestive system and suddenly, out of the blue, just coincidentally while I’m getting chemo, I get bowel inflammation. We know that chemo attacks any part of the digestive system, from the mouth to the anus, but this is obviously completely unrelated.

Howard and Andrine showed up around 2:30 and I shared the news. I was still hooked up to an IV. They never gave me any actual water to drink, just IV saline. Andrine called Lysanji, our homeopath, to apprise her of the situation. Andrine’s theory, which makes more sense than the doctor’s, is that my bowel got inflamed from the norovirus two weeks ago. I was in the process of healing when the chemo provided another assault on my gut. The day before the attack I had eaten a lot of citrus fruit which further irritated it. (These facts about the norovirus and the citrus fruit were given to the doctor so she might have come to the same conclusion).

Finally, after all the fluid had drained from the IV into my port, I was unhooked, de-accessed, and discharged. I went home and fell into bed. Lysanji, bless her heart, made a house call that evening. She’s the most amazing healer. She asked me all of her odd questions. When I had the pain, did I lie on my right or left side, did I curl my knees up to my chest? Things like that. After a while, she decided that there was a remedy that would be appropriate. She gave me a couple of little sugar pills and a few packets to take later on if indicated. After taking the remedy I felt immediately more cheerful and she said my face had more color.

I honestly don’t get homeopathy. Why the hell does it work so well? Little sugar pills with and herb that is so diluted as to be non-existent – this makes sense? And yet, the cramping stopped. Late last night I had some more cramps, took another dose of the remedy and they stopped.

I’m eating cautiously. I had a few strands of spaghetti and a bowl of cheerios for dinner (not normally part of my diet, but they seemed safe). For breakfast I had oatmeal. So far so good.

I remain astonished at the ineptitude of Western medicine. I guess we figured out that my bowel was inflamed. However, there was no treatment other than painkillers. And the conclusion that this episode was unrelated to chemo was ludicrous. I think I shall forgo the suggestion to see the gastro-enterologist. Homeopathy is more my speed.