The State of the Brian.

All righty, might as well get you up to date on what my current situation is, health-wise. Because my mouth is full of canker sores at the moment and I don't want to repeat myself a dozen times (because it's a bit painful to talk), here is the situation.

I had a flare-up a few weeks ago, which caused me a lot of gut pain--the usual. However, unlike before, where they've gone away in a day or two, this one hasn't left. Because of this flare-up, I am experiencing a wide range of symptoms I've never had before at the same time, all of which are related with Crohn's disease:

--canker sores popping up all at once in my mouth
--arthritis-like pain in my feet
--diarrhea
--weight loss
--nightly fevers

Right now, the gut pain is gone, and I'm slowly re-introducing solid food back into my diet, but the other symptoms above still remain, which tells me that the inflammation in my intestine has not gone away.

I am seeing my doctors and am having tests done to see the extent of the flare-up.

There is a possibility that surgery may need to be done; if so, it would likely result in the removal of the infected part of my intestine, and then having the remaining healthy intestine sewn back together. This would essentially remove the Crohn's from my body--I would not be cured (Crohn's is chronic), but if all goes well, I'd go into remission.

However, I can't stress enough--SURGERY IS NOT DEFINITE. At this time, THERE ARE NO PLANS TO HAVE SURGERY. It's just a possibility. That's what these tests are to determine.

Once I have a more definite idea of where we're going to go from here, I'll let you know.

I don't even have a definite idea of where things are going, which is why I haven't really said too much until now.

A lot of things still remain up in the air, but until I find out where we're headed, I am taking it as easy as possible.

And that's where I'm at.