Call the Doctor

Over the past year or so, Chris has been having Crohn's Disease symptoms on and off. Crohn's Disease is a form of IBD which presents itself as inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. Basically, whenever Chris eats too much or too fast, especially when he's eating foods high in starch, he gets an incredible amount of pain in his stomach (or more accurately, his small intestine). He was diagnosed with the condition about 7 years ago, and it hasn't been an issue until now. A couple of weeks ago, the symptoms became quite severe. It got to the point where he was unable to digest the food he was eating and could barely drink water without feeling like he gorged himself. Naturally, we went to see the doctor. We found that a portion of his small intestine had become inflamed so often that scar tissue formed in his intestinal wall, allowing little food to pass through. This was causing the healthy intestine above to dilate (stretch out) and collect a build-up of half-digested food. Since medication can only reduce swelling and not fix scarring, Chris is heading into surgery Tuesday the 17th to either remove or repair the scarred area. Here's a little diagram of what his insides look like right now:

Chris should be in the hospital for about 4-6 days, depending on how fast he recovers. And then he'll be lying around for several weeks while he heals. Looks like Thanksgiving will be a little weak this year.

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