Period: June 2013 - August 2013
I was informed that it usually takes about three infusions before it;s clear whether the Infliximab is working or not, which would take a couple of months. Not for the first time, I felt like I was in total limbo. I would not have believed myself capable of being so negative, but the fear of yet another disappointment led me to be extremely cautious in believing that the Infliximab was working.
in June I had my first ever smear test. Naturally, it did not come back clear and I received a letter informing me I had moderate dyskaryosis, or "pre-cancerous changes in the cervix". It further reinforced my increasingly negative perception that I was an extremely unlucky individual and that I had become one of those boring people who spends all of their time attending medical appointments! After the indignity of the colonoscopies I now had a couple of delightful colposcopies and the affected cells were lasered away.
Nevertheless, slowly but surely my Crohn's symptoms started to improve. It was a very gradual change but by August I was no longer in constant pain and there was an element of normality to my pooping. I had also completely stopped vomiting. Around this time I finally received an appointment with a councillor, however I decided to cancel it. Instead of learning from my mistakes with the Crohn's, I refused to accept that I had depression and I was determined to snap myself out of it. I reasoned that my physical health was improving so I had no right to be depressed. In fact, I felt extremely guilty that I wasn't making the most of being well again. I also declined the councillors appointments because I was fed up with being in medical institutions all the time!
Nevertheless, slowly but surely my Crohn's symptoms started to improve. It was a very gradual change but by August I was no longer in constant pain and there was an element of normality to my pooping. I had also completely stopped vomiting. Around this time I finally received an appointment with a councillor, however I decided to cancel it. Instead of learning from my mistakes with the Crohn's, I refused to accept that I had depression and I was determined to snap myself out of it. I reasoned that my physical health was improving so I had no right to be depressed. In fact, I felt extremely guilty that I wasn't making the most of being well again. I also declined the councillors appointments because I was fed up with being in medical institutions all the time!
Throughout the past couple of years, I had always assumed that once my physical health improved I would just pick up my life where I left off. However, what I hadn't really considered was how much it had changed my life and me as a person. After three years, I was so used to being permanently ill that I just didn't know how to handle being healthy. I was so used to saying "no" whenever people invited me out that I couldn't bring myself to say yes to anything. I slowly but determinedly started to distance myself from the outside world even more - I eventually suspended my Facebook account, changed my mobile number and spent most of my spare time alone.
The worst part was, to the outside world, for instance colleagues, I seemed extremely happy. During my illness I had spent so long pretending to everyone that I was fine that I was now conditioned to be a different person in public. At work, all my colleagues and regular customers saw me as a happy-go-lucky character that could handle everything. Alone, I would spend my time dwelling on the fact that I was lying to everybody and hating myself for it.
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