Surgery Isn't The "Easy Way Out"

The other day I was watching one of my favorite shows. It's a medical show. A guy came in with many issues and soon told the doctors that he'd had gastric bypass. This was very interesting to me. He'd had the surgery years and years ago and now he was experiencing many different and really odd symptoms. His knee was hurting, he also had a fistula, and so on and so forth. As time passed, the doctors actually diagnosed him with Crohn's Disease.

"The easy way out"

I thought it was super interesting, but I really loved how they incorporated this into his storyline. Because he had Crohn's Disease, they needed to reverse his gastric bypass. I'm not a medical expert, but this is what happened on the show and the reasoning sounded right. The doctors explained why they needed to do the reversal, but the patient didn't want his husband to know. He was embarrassed. Turns out he was actually afraid the husband would think of him, the same thing one of the doctors thought: He took the easy way out.

When he first met the doctors, he told them he once weighed over three hundred pounds. Later in surgery, one doctor still acknowledged he could have "tried a healthy diet and exercise." I get it. I've actually seen this same perspective used a lot in the IBD community.

People always offer their recommendations

As a person with a digestive disease, people always have their recommendations. They always think their magic potion is the cure. While diet and lifestyle can have an impact on Inflammatory Bowel Disease and there are times when diet and lifestyle changes can help or even put a patient into remission, unfortunately, this isn't always the case.

I'm not sure if it's because of the nature of our disease, or simply this new social desire to be heard, but for some reason, people feel so comfortable with passing out medical advice with no qualifications at all. For those of us who have had surgery or who take part in medical intervention, at times we're looked down upon. People have said many things about me and my ulcerative colitis. Assuming it's "not that serious" and/or questioning my doctor's judgment. I often find it hard to believe because surgery actually isn't easy. It wasn't an easy decision to trust a stranger with my life. It wasn't easy hearing and agreeing to the risks involved. It's also not easy to live a life full of limitations due to an illness out of your control knowing there are options out there, but refusing to learn about them.

Education

I don't promote surgery, but what I do promote is education. Educate yourself on a site or resource before you recommend it to a friend that could cost them their life. Educate yourself on medications and surgical procedures before you go downing them. Most people who I've encountered downing my decisions are the same people who hardly know anything about Ulcerative Colitis and are probably spelling Crohn's with a K.

If you are considering surgery, do your own research. Don't allow the outside world to influence a decision on your body.