Blood in stool

pepebcn said:

beth l don,t know you but
l send you my best wishes and prayers from Barcelona!

Sonia32 said:

Sending...
...prayers, good wishes, erm karma anything I can throw your way. Please Beth keep us informed, thinking of you.

Hugs
Sonia

AnneCan said:

Thinking of you
Beth,

You are in my thoughts; I am hoping this is something simple. I am sorry this is happening. I love the new photo of your grandson!

trainer said:

blood in stool
I've mostly been lurking these past months, but thought I'd weigh in on why I am so glad you are getting checked. I had started acting strange ( If you knew me better, you'd ask how could anyone tell strange from normal strange!) I had the tarry black stool and my doctor said if that ever happened to get myself into the ER. Well, like most guys I didn't do it. And then my voice started slurring the words. It took me a long time to respond to questions and then it was just goofy talk. Plus, I didn't want to do anything, except watch TV.

One Friday morning, June 4, Mary, my wife, dragged me to the ER at Mayo and they did some blood tests. Turns out I had a strain of Strep called H Pilori or something. It's particularly nasty and pure hell on the stomach. So I was bleeding profusely in several places in my stomach including development of a bleeding ulcer. Took them more than a week to determine what it was.

If that wasn't bad enough, I was anemic from the loss of blood, dehydrated, but in the weirdest way, the "water" had settled in my legs and mid-section and I really swelled up. And my kidney as a result virtually shut down, with the next step being dialysis.

So they did an endoscopy, cauterizing the bleeding points, put me on an antibiotic drip and same for electrolytes. They also gave me stiff doses of two diuretics, which ended up losing 30 lbs. in 11 days, virtually all the stored water in my legs and midsection. My kidney started up OK. I was on a liquid diet. Mayo or not, they have some nasty food. But I didn't get to eat for three days. And when I finally did, it was like the worst good the Navy ever prepared. They had teams of doctors coming by to observe me and ask questions. Guess it was the first time they'd treated that strain of Strep. Plus, the nurses would wake me every hour and ask me questions. I suppose they wanted to see if I was improving. When I finally told them to leave me along and quit waking me up, they said, yep, he's getting better.

I forgot to mention they also gave me a blood transfusion of two pints of whole blood. This really did the trick. There just wasn't enough blood getting oxygen to my brain. The severity of the situation came home when the primary doctor told Mary and I that if I hadn't come in on Friday, I would have more than likely been dead by Tuesday. I would just have gone to sleep and not awakened. Let me tell you, that got my attention! When I came in, I couldn't even sign my name on the forms.

Once I got got home, it was about a two week recovery period. Biggest problem for me was a loss of stamina in my legs. Couldn't want far and climbing the stairs was rough and I had to use the railing and pull myself up, step by step.

I'm not telling you this other than to tell you that it might not be cancer, because who in the world would have thought I'd get that nasty infection. Doc said I could have picked it up any time and it just never came to life. I went to some nasty places in the Navy, maybe that was it, or it could have been there since who knows when, but it was definitely in my blood.

I'm praying that your situation is nothing more than roids. You definitely don't want what I had. It's been an interesting two years, diabetes, colon cancer and then this infection. I may change my screen name to "Lucky!" Take care. BTW, great photo of your grandson.