My troubles began on Monday, September 10, 2012. After coming back from a long8-month deployment on the USS Essex, I started to feel tired, lightheaded, hot and sickly. A short while later, my body was so tired that I had to go to sleep. While in bed, I began sweating and decided to check my temperature. To my surprise, I found out that I had a fever of close to 104 degrees F.Right after that I got the runs and my belly became severely painful. At that point, I assumed that I had food poisoning, since it had happened in the past when I was in deployment and many of us got really sick while visiting Malaysia. This time was worse, with the fever and back pain. The belly pain was excruciating and the diarrhea didn’t stop. I thank God I was at my parents’ house and on vacation.
After a while, the fever came down a little and the stomach pain subsides a bit. The next day, the fever and other symptoms were still there, and I felt dehydrated. I therefore decided to go to the hospital to get checked by a doctor and get some medication. After a few hours of waiting in the emergency room, the doctor finally saw me and concluded that it was food poisoning. He sent me home with antibiotics and said that sooner or later I would be back to normal.The following day, the symptoms were back, and this time I felt like something was burning inside the lower left side of my belly. I returned to the hospital. They gave me morphine for the pain and admitted me to the hospital for the weekend so they could keep an eye on me and prepare me for a colonoscopy on Monday morning.
After the colonoscopy, I went back to my house to wait for the results. I was not worried about the results, I assumed everything was going to be OK, but the pain and the other symptoms were still present. They were not as bad a before, but they had been lingering for a week. I noticed that during that week, I had lost at least 10 pounds. I was very concerned; being a military serviceman, I couldn’t afford to look slim and weak. So, I stopped my liquid diet and went back to eating my normal diet of meat, rice, potatoes, bread, dairy, etc.
I got a call from the doctor letting me know that my colonoscopy results were back and he wanted to speak with me. I went to his office and he told me that I have Crohn’s disease—a crippling inflammatory bowel disease. At that time, I did not know how to react; I had never even heard of that disease. I remember his words, “There is no cure for this disease, and the only thing you can do is to take medication for the rest of your life. The meds will take care of the symptoms so they do not return.” He also said that if I stop taking the meds, the disease symptoms will come back, making the symptoms harder to control.
After hearing this news, it felt as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I said to him, “But I’ve never taken pills in my life, and now I have to take pills for the rest of my life?” I felt hopeless and depressed. He told me not to worry, since many people have Crohn’s. He told me how his cousin has this disease, but that she was in a worse situation, requiring blood infusions in order to stay alive. That made me feel even worse. He said everything is going to be OK and I should carry on with my normal life. I’ve always been a positive person with the mindset that everything is possible, but with this, I felt that my life was over.
The Navy doctors agreed that I was not longer fit for duty after 4 years of service and I was medically discharged from the military service. I had plans to complete 20 years of service for my country but due to the circumstances, I was forced to lose my career and start a new one. Since then, I have been fighting this incurable debilitating disease which prevents me from having a normal job. I have a lot of hope that a cure for it will be discover soon so I can finally heal it and start a more productive life.
