This week was an awesome one, I had an appointment at St Vincent’s hospital.
They run a clinic there for women whom are pregnant/wanting to fall pregnant and have Inflammatory Bowel Disease. They reached out to be at the beginning of my pregnancy after hearing about my miscarriage last year and being hospitalised they wanted to monitor me throughout this pregnancy to ensure I don’t become as sick as what I was.
They are currently doing a study and I’m apart of it – I thought it doesn’t hurt having another team of specialist looking over me over this pregnancy.
So what does this entail? Check up appointments, poop samples, questionnaires and ultrasounds! Not of the baby but of my stomach.
Any who first appointment was this week – I was nervous, I mean I feel good but I just don’t really know what to expect – in the past Dr’s haven’t been great (that’s dramatically changed now – I will never go to a bulk billing facility or turner st medical again)
The Gastroenterologist was amazing! She was super friendly and made me feel comfortable – not dumb and didn’t talk down to me like a lot of drs sometimes do. She was happy with the way my pregnancy had been going and took me down for an ultrasound of my intestines to see what sort of inflammation was present (I cant have a colonoscopy being pregnant)
This made me nervous – I mean I feel good and my bowels have been amazing!
But during the ultrasound she was very quite and didn’t give me much, the nerves grew and grew, she eventually spoke.
“There seems to be inflammation present”
What a relief. This was the confirmation that I was a step closer to remission. This was later confirmed days later when my stool samples came back.
I’m officially in remission (YAY!)
Does this mean I’m healed and fixed? Unfortunately no.
Ulcerative Colitis is something I’ll have forever with no cure, but you do go in bouts of remission where no symptoms happen.
I’ll more then likely have a flare after giving birth (they seem to think this happens because of the extra stress of your body?) so I’m just taking everything day by day and enjoy feeling good while I can!
A big step in the right direction this week!
Stay Strong & Stretch,
Tel X
talkingwithtel 