Ulcerative Colitis: Curable Auto-immune Gastroenterological Disorder

Mild Symptoms Can Mask Serious Illness

One day in November 2006 our family life changed, irrevocably. My thirteen-year-old daughter, who had been complaining of stomach pains and elimination problems, was the color of chalk. The whites of her eyes, her skin, even her lips were pale. Diagnosed with mononucleosis a year prior, she'd still been sleeping more than usual and felt lethargic. Chief among a litany of complaints were occasional bouts of dizziness and lethargy.

After some earlier testing in summer where nothing was found, she began to hide her symptoms from others. Alarmed by her pediatrician's announcement that further problems would necessitate hospitalization and testing, she later admitted her best and safest bet was to pretend nothing was wrong.

All of this culminated in months of slight but steady internal bleeding and pain she failed to divulge to anyone else. Which eventually resulted in a trip to the emergency room that day in November.

Doctors drew her blood and were immediately alarmed: her hemoglobin (red blood cell) count was down to 5 grams per deciliter (g/dL). A normal red blood cell count hovers somewhere in the vicinity of 12 or 13 grams per deciliter. The g/dL measurement can be explained in this way: a gram is equal to the weight of one milliliter or 16 drops of water. It is about 1/40 of an ounce. A deciliter measures fluid volume equal to 1/10 of a liter. A liter is a little bigger than a quart of fluid, according to www.webmd.com.

Initial Symptoms and Diagnosis

The initial diagnosis was clearly severe secondary anemia brought on by internal bleeding. Based on the symptoms of stomach pains, intermittent bouts of bleeding during bowel movements (the actual amount quite underrepresented by my daughter) and the rest of her overall blood measurements being normal, the doctors suspected Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn's Disease.