Half Marathons, Fainting and Abscesses: Oh My!

I had been receiving IV infusions of Remicade, a biologic treatment Crohn's, for 14 years as I entered 2016. It was becoming clear that what had been a miracle drug was not having the same response. As we entered the new year I was cycling through antibiotics and trying to figure out next steps.

Despite my health challenges I continued running. I completed the Shamrock Shuffle 8k in Chicago in March and the Gazelle Girl Half Marathon in Grand Rapids in April. I was still competing (with myself) at a level that made me happy. 

In April my son brought home Norovirus from daycare, and it cycled through our family. I couldn't seem to recover from the bug. I couldn't shake extraordinary abdominal pain.  My doctor ordered lab work, so I headed to the lab around the corner from my office. I don't have an aversion to needles and have had lab work completed more times than I can count. On this day the nurse was unable to find a vein, and I inexplicably passed out. When I came to I insisted I was fine and stood up to walk out. I woke on the floor, cradled in the arms of a very pregnant nurse, hearing sirens in the distance. Per their policy they'd called 9-1-1, and I was taken from the lab to the emergency room.

The GI team at Sparrow Hospital decided to keep me to see what was causing the abdominal pain and fainting. I received IV steroids that made my joints swell. I was in the hospital nearly a week while they tried in vain to pinpoint the cause of the Crohn's flare. 

The steroids seemed to work in calming things down, and within a month I was back to running and traveling. In July I left the organization where I'd worked for 8½ years, and I spent the rest of the summer traveling with my family: to Portland, Oregon, West Virginia, Virginia, and Colorado. I was training for my 22nd half marathon, and my equilibrium felt like it was slowly being restored.

In October we spent the weekend in Detroit where I ran the Detroit Half Marathon. I had run the full marathon six years earlier, and it was fun to complete the half. It poured rain that day, and I ran more slowly than usual. But it was a fun weekend with friends and was my girlfriend's first time running a half marathon. It felt great.

Finishing the Detroit Half in 2016

The week after the race my doctor switched me to Humira because the Remicade did not appear to be effective any longer. Humira is the same class of drug, so there was a risk it wouldn't work, but it was a risk we needed to take. So instead of IV infusions I'd inject myself at home which felt way more convenient. 

That week I dealt with the usual post-race soreness. Runners know you can deal with chafing after a race, and I felt like I had some serious chafing on my butt cheek. It was very sore, red and hard to the touch, and I assumed it was chafing. The weekend after the race we took our son to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI, a place very dear to my husband's heart because his grandparents took him there often and he worked there in college. While we were at the village my jeans were rubbing my chafing spot, and it was so painful I could hardly sit down.

The day before surgery at Greenfield Village

The next day I took our son to preschool and then told my husband I thought I had an abscess. We went to the ER where it was determined that it wasn't chafing; I had a large abscess that needed to be drained. I was in surgery by mid-afternoon, and the surgeon indicated he couldn't believe I was functioning with an abscess that size.

While this is all too much information, if you don't want real TMI you should stop reading now. As part of the process my surgeon inserted a seton, or drain, so the abscess would be continually draining until it's healed. My seton originally had three openings: two near my anus and one on my bikini line. It was so uncomfortable, and the draining was miserable. I quickly discovered I'd have to wear gauze all the time to absorb the drainage. It was very sexy.

My surgeon was able to remove the bikini line connection point, the most uncomfortable one, after only about six weeks. I would have the seton for eight long months. Any illusions I had about my Crohn's being in remission were long gone.