Weary of Chronic Pain

I am weary of chronic pain (I know, you didn't expect that from the title).

I don't write a lot when I'm doing well, and I was doing well for about a week and a half, and then this Sunday, I started having pain. And I've had pain starting every afternoon this week and continuing into the night. Yesterday was the best day, with pain only starting after/during dinner.

Today, I woke up with pain.

I just feel so discouraged and self-pitying. I feel so weary of managing pain, of thinking through what to eat and what not to eat, etc.

I went into the OB on Monday because I was feeling lightheaded (and had been since Friday) and my hands and feet tingled when the lightheadedness descended. She checked my blood pressure and hemoglobin, and I'm pretty anemic. I'm 9.0 and the normal range is 11.5-15.0. (I don't know the measurements.) Four weeks ago, I was 11.0. The doc said I'm malnourished: the baby is doing REALLY well and growing perfectly, very active, and using most of the nutrition I eat, leaving me with the leftovers and the leftovers aren't enough. So, the doc wants me to eat a lot more. She wants me to add one or two Boost drinks to my daily intake of food.

That would be fine if I wasn't experiencing Crohn's pain and really wanted my intestines to have a break from processing food. If I wanted to avoid food that I have to work to digest for a whole day, I'd have to have four to five Boosts in that one day. Expensive and boring. And not enough nutrition (6 Boosts would have 2,000 cal., for instance).

So, I'm trying to eat good meals and not to worry about my Crohn's. After all, it does what it wants sometimes, without provocation from me. I'm trying to be stress-free (but not trying that hard, come to think of it). I'm trying to pray and share this burden with Jesus and with Kurt and with other people who love me, so that my feeling alone doesn't increase the problem. Most of all, I'm trying to eat enough for this little one inside of me to grow and for me to be healthy enough to continue to sustain her.

But I am weary of the pain. I desperately want to call my GI doc and ask for Entocort, a steroid. I want to not care about the complications that brings into the pregnancy, the unknown side effects on our little Junebug, the known effects it will have on our birth/labor.

But I can't. I guess this is part of the self-sacrifice of mothering.

Please pray that I would know how much to bear down and deal with the pain on my own, and when to call the GI doc.