Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Taroh, I know you feel this way right now b/c of your struggles, but you have no idea what you are talking about really simply b/c you have NOT faced a life threatening disease. In a way, IBS is, at least the IBS-D b/c you can become dehydrated and if you're not replenishing the liquids, you could die from that. Many of our ancestors in the 1800's and before died from that b/c they didn't know that...but anyway.

The point is, I do have a life threating illness. No it's not cancer, but my primary tumor (from when I was 13...read my post about me if you haven't already) is literally wrapped around my brain stem and had it twisted in a knot. they removed 98% of in 1990, but had to leave the 2% b/c it encapsulates a major artery and is literally sitting on top of all the nerves that control every function of my body. Even if the tumor doesn't kill me, if it grows anymore I'll probably become a vegetable or at the very least paralyzed, completely blind, etc. For me, IBS is the very least of my worries!

Another thing that even though someone has cancer 1. it's not curable and 2. drs' can say you have so much time left to live, 6 months, a year, etc., but they are not always right and 3. even if they do die, it's not necessarily the cancer that kills them. I have a cousin who had ovarian cancer. In 95% of the cases of that kind of cancer, the patient will die within 2 years even with chemo. If they find it early enough, they may live as long as 5, but it's extremely rare to live longer than that. My cousin lived 10. During her battle and constant chemo treatments, her husband was diagnosed with hodgkins disease and died within only a few months of diagnosis. She continued to live, 10 years. In the end, she never died of cancer. I can't remember what it was now, been about 15 years, but it wasn't cancer or cancer related. Compared to radiation or chemo, IBS is a walk in the park, and she went through chemo for 10 years. I went through radiation for 3 months. 22 years of my IBS doesn't even compare to what I went through with radiation.

I know the grass always looks greener on the other side, but believe me, it's not. Try not to look to far into the future. None of us knows how long we're gonna live. Start out by taking it one day at a time. That what I did when back in 1995. Just one day at a time. Now I can look into the future without seeing total dispair, but I can't look too far into it. So I look maybe the end of the year. Set goals for myself outside of my medical junk. My goal this year is finally learn sign language! I've been deaf almost 11 years, but never been able to learn it b/c I was in college. I'm done now (sorta!) and have the time, so I'm trying to learn more. I know I won't be fluent by the end of this year, and that's ok. At the end of this year, I'll look back on the progress I've made and set new goals. Maybe write an article for a magazine. I don't know. The point is don't look too far into the future. Until you're ready to look past the here and now, just take it one day at a time. Believe me, things are not as bad as they seem. I'm learning that. No matter how bad I think I have it, I always learn about people who have it worse.

Erin

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Erin
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IBS-D, GERD...
I got it comin' outta 1 end or the other!

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