That was not expected..

Monday, Jim was feeling like he had an upset stomach and was experiencing several trips to the bathroom. The rest of us were kind of avoiding him like the plague (we didn't want to get sick). Tuesday, he got worse, and that night said he was in a lot of pain and went to urgent care. They prescribed some pain meds and anti-diaherra medicine.

Tuesday over night Jim's pain and trips ot the bathroom got worse. Then he started to have bleeding. So Wednesday morning, he got up and went to the ER. By the afternoon on Wednesday after some bloodwork and a catscan, they admitted him to the hospital. They could see on the catscan that he had pancolitis which means inflammation of the colon from beginning to end. When the ER doctor came in, he didn't even hesitate. He just said, we have to admit you because this pain is going to stay this way or get worse plus they need to determine what it is. The ER doctor said he thought it was symptomatic of an infectious colitis (infalmmation caused by bacteria or virus), but wouldn't know for sure until stool cultures came back.

Jim ended up being in the hospital through Friday around supper time. They kept him on IV and a pain pump. They also did a colonscopy to see if they could determine more. All of the cultures came back negative so there was some speculation that this was an acute inflammatory condition. In the end, though, they still think it was infectious because of how sudden it came on, what they saw in the colonscopy and the fact that Jim started to heal on his own without medical interevention (for the colitis). They intervened for pain and dehydration. They did take some biopsies that Jim will get tests results for this next week.

Jim is home and healing, but it is a slow process. He still is taking pain medication, very weak, and sleeping a lot. However, the bleeding has stopped, reduced bathrooms trips, and he has been able to eat. They have him on a lactose free diet for the next three weeks.

He is going to try to go to work tomorrow for atleast a half day and he is praying that he is healthy by next weekend so he will be able to go to Tall Corn (his annual off roading event).

We had planned to go spend the weekend with my family which we haven't seen since Callie's birthday in May, but we have stayed close to home instead.

If that wasn't enough to make it absolutely crazy week, we had the first day of school, missed backpack night, Jim's parents went to Florida for a long weekend, and while watching our kids on Friday night so we could sleep, Jim's brother had a racing heartbeat and had to be admitted to ICU for the night!!!!

We are thankful, though, that it wasn't anything more serious. We won't know that for sure until the biopsies come back, but it seems likely since he is healing. The other more serious conditions should require treatment to heal. We have been home all weekend just resting. Which is just what the doctor ordered.