My Gut

For the last 6 months or so, I (Colleen) have been experiencing a lot of pain to the left of my navel. I met with the dr., who put me on a regimen of miralax and citrucel every morning, which helped with the "regularity" issues, but did nothing to get rid of the pain. So, we had to go to the next step.

A couple weeks ago I had a CT scan...actually, I had two. I had it in the morning, so didn't eat before hand, went to Pella, got the IV, got the CT scan, finished up, and went to work in DSM, because I have a LOT of work to do right now. The IV gave me a headache. I had a bowl of oatmeal after the CT scan, and was about to eat some leftovers that afternoon, when the hospital called and said the "forgot" to take a couple pictures. They told me not to eat. So I drove back to Pella, waited around for abou an hour, then went in for the 2nd CT scan of the day. The nurse tried unsuccessfully to get the iv in twice, and then i told her to just put it in the giant vein where they did it earlier that day...then said, "I think I might pass out first." They gave me some apple juice, I recovered, and they did the 2nd scan. Afterwards I thought I might be OK to drive home, made it one block, then went to my parent's house and asked Scott to pick me up.

There were no problems in the CT Scan, so they decided to do a colonoscopy. The day before I could not eat anything except Jello and beverages. In the late afternoon I took some dulcolax, then drank an entire bottle of Miralax mixed into 64 oz. of Gatorade. At least it tasted nice. Let me tell you, one capful of Miralax a day will keep you regular. An entire bottle will clear you out. That was interesting.

The colonoscopy went just fine, and they found no problems. Scott brought me home and I slept the day away.

They have officially diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which is one of those things that has no known cause, and no known solution. I have some drugs to try, but I also am going to start eating a diet that will (hopefully) not trigger pain...from my research so far, that means lots of fiber, and not much caffiene, fats, red meat, carbonation (in other words, everything yummy).

Thanksgiving Celebrations

On Thanksgiving Day, Scott and I drove through Creston to pick up Scott's grandma, then went to Western Iowa to celebrate at Scott's Mom's house. We had a good time, and had a delicious meal. On Black Friday Scott and I went Christmas shopping. If we had a choice, we would NEVER have gone shopping that day. Unfortunately, it was the only day both of us could do any Christmas shopping together. We got ALL of our present, wrapped them that night, and put up the Christmas tree and decorations on Saturday.

On Sunday we had Thanksgiving with the Evenhouse family at my parents' house. I had made turkey and pumpkin nametags, and my nieces helped color them.

This is the turkey Hannah colored for Scott. Notice the green mohawk, the ankle bracelets, and you might even be able to see the nose piercing in the turkey's beak.
We turned the table at an angle and lined up the other table with it. here we all are, ready to eat!