Many of you have been asking why I seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth in December 2025. Rather than repeat the information many times over texts, emails, or in-person visits to many friends, family, and colleagues, I decided this would be the easiest way to keep everyone updated.

February 2026 Update

In early February, I had an initial visit with the gastroenterologist specialist who reviewed all my previous bloodwork, CT scans, colonoscopy results. While he cautions that this diagnosis means a long-term approach to recovery, he's also cautiously optimistic that my symptoms can eventually be managed by something called a "biologic steroid." Oddly enough, these biologic steriods are also a "trial and error" approach to treatment, as each person's situation is different and a specific steroid that works for one person may not work for another with almost identical symptoms.

The best part of all this? The biologic steroid has to be approved by insurance... so as of mid-February, we're still waiting on that so I can begin that path to see if it helps or doesn't help. The doctor will see me again every 3 months (next appointment in May 2026) to determine how the prescription steroid is working. Until then, I am basically doing a trial-and-error approach to understand what foods work or don't work, and hope to reduce the amount of inflammation in my digestive track.

For now, I'm just grateful that the strong steroid I've been taking since December 2025 has been working to improve the inflammation and pain. I'm still trying to get back to a relatively normal life (aka: fewer restroom visits, but they still pop up unexpectedly)... and anything is better than the nonsense I dealt with in late December when things were at their worst. I'm on a solid path to getting better, and appreciate everyone who has reached out offering support and prayers... it's a long road to go, but I'm determined to get there soon!

January 2026 Update

I'd like to say that improvement can be steady and straightforward now that a diagnosis has been reached, but this disease has proven it'll be anything but that. I need to stabilize and understand what I can and cannot eat (as previously mentioned, the disease can cause some temporary intolerances to foods that have historically been OK for me) through daily trial-and-error. I need to continue taking the potent steroids that wreak havoc on my immune system, and hopefully the GI specialists will find the right lifetime treatment options that target my specific symptoms in the long-term. It could take weeks, months, or years of treatment to get this under full control, and is a lifetime diagnosis that will require constant surveillance and monitoring by doctors and experts to avoid and/or mitigate flare-ups in the future.

I'm forever thankful for those who have helped me survive the last few weeks, including my parents, friends and family who reached out to check on me, and work colleagues who covered for me to be out of office unexpectedly during the holiday season. I've got a long journey ahead, and I'm committed to doing what's needed to get my digestive and immune systems back in good graces with each other.

For now, though, thanks for reading and following-along on this bumpy road I'm taking, and for your continued support, prayers, and good-vibes to get through it!

Detailed and Boring Background

As a software engineer and data nerd, I built an app about 20 years ago to track things in my day-to-day life... things like when I mowed the yard, when I changed my HVAC filters, and when I ran the dishwasher or a load of laundry. Part of that data was to track my daily health stats like weight, blood pressure, and bowel movements. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to look back at decades of data to look for trends and do some analysis... but in reality, it was just a way for me to track data and send myself reminders when I'd forget to transfer the clothes from the washing machine into the dryer or when I'd need a reminder to clean out the chicken coop.

Little did I know that this daily weight and bowel movement data would come in clutch in 2025! In August 2025, I noticed that the frequency of my bowel movements started to increase day-over-day while also noticing some unexpected weight loss. Initially, it was nothing to be concerned with, and I chalked it up to maybe something I'd eaten that my stomach didn't much like. After a few weeks of this trend continuing, though, I started to be concerned. The bowel movements were becoming less solid over time and were increasing in frequency that didn't align to when or what I was eating.

Initially, I was able to manage these weird symptoms on my own... I altered my eating schedule to once-per-day, and could deal with the side-effects throughout the evening and still feel OK. As time went on, though, this became less reliable and I was having bowel movements at all hours of the day and night. I was losing a lot of sleep waking up to urgent needs to visit the restroom every hour or two, and it started interrupting my work schedule with frequent restroom visits throughout the day. As many of you know, I also play piano/keyboard with my church's worship team each Sunday being on stage for 30 minutes at a time for rehearsals and three Sunday morning services, so having urgent, unexpected restroom needs pop up was less than ideal.

I began visiting with my primary care physician (PCP) in October 2025 to discuss what might be causing these symptoms. Initially, they seem unconcerned and thought it was related to increased stress or poor diet. I'll be the first to admit that my job did have some increased stress over the Summer 2025 months due to the ongoing nonsense in the federal government and contracting world. But my diet had been pretty rock solid for years with no issues, and nothing had recently changed to trigger this level of discomfort. Despite my pleadings, the doctors sort of dismissed my concerns and said to "come back if symptoms worsened."

Well, worsened they did. In late November 2025, I started noticing blood in the stool output with increasing frequency and quantity. I'm no medical expert, but that didn't seem good. I immediately revisited my PCP and shared this alarming update. She agreed that the concerns were valid, and began a series of tests (in-office and at-home) to do some further diagnosis. Chalk this up to the aformentioned terrible American healthcare system, but it took almost 1.5 weeks to get any results back from those tests, at which point the symptoms had continued to worsen. When the nurse called with the results, she basically said "the tests confirmed what you told us, there's blood in your stool and we're going to refer you to a gastroenterologist specialist for further discussion." Gee, thanks for charging me almost $1,000 for four tests to confirm what I was already telling you.

The referral finally came through, and the gastroenterologist office called to say they could fit me in for an initial consult appointment in mid-March 2026... yes, almost FOUR months in the future. I asked to be placed on the cancellation list, and asked if there was any way to accelerate the appointment. Again, given the terrible state of healthcare in America, there is a shortage of providers in rural areas where I live. Couple this with the for-profit insurance company deciding what providers will or won't be covered and this recipe ends exactly how you think it does... this was the earliest and best option they could offer. I made the appointment and decided to stick it out as best as I could.

In mid-December 2025, the symptoms and pain were so unbearable that I had all but stopped eating anything but soft foods in hopes that the symptoms would subside. From August 2025 through December 2025, I'd lost over 20% of my starting body weight (not an unsubstantial amount). I was fatigued all the time, I was having trouble focusing due to lack of sleep, and generally felt miserable all the time. After church one Sunday in December 2025, I stopped at the emergency room and was given some IV fluids to help stabilize my health, and also got a CT scan to do some further diagnosis of my digestive tract. After a quick read by the radiologist (kudos to this ER for their rapid response and support), the ER doctor came in and said it was a pretty serious case of ulcerative colitis and would require some further inspection to narrow-down and treat. The ER doctor made an emergency referral to a different gastroenterologist provider who would squeeze me in for a consult in just a few days, not months. I'm forever grateful that the ER doctor took the stance he did and escalated the urgency of this problem so I could be seen by a specialist much quicker.

A few days later, not only had I completed an initial consultation with a gastroenterologist specialist, they scheduled me for an emergency colonoscopy the very next day. I'd never had one, but everyone who has said the colonoscopy prep was the worst part of the ordeal. Little did they know that I'd already been doing colonoscopy prep for months as a side-effect of all the digestive problems I'd been having. The "clear-out" prep was super easy, and the colonoscopy procedure was quick and painless. Immediately afterward, the GI doctor confirmed the diagnosis of severe ulcerative colitis and prescribed some at-home steroids to take which should start to reduce the painful inflamation that was the primary cause of my symptoms.

After a few days at home with the steroids, though, the symptoms worsened again and the pain resumed. I decided to go to the emergency room again around Christmas, and after another CT scan, several doctors and GI specialists agreed that the steroids were not working in my favor. I was admitted to the hospital for what would end up being a 5 day stay to get very powerful IV steroids, shots, supplements, and infusions into my body. I was put on a strict clear liquid diet (chicken broth, jell-o, italian ice, and apple juice) for the entire stay to help further reduce the inflammation. While I'm thankful for the targeted treatment and support the nurses and doctors provided, the worst part of the hospital stay was trying to fit my 6.5 foot tall body into a 5 foot long hospital bed to get some rest each night.

Many expensive visits ($480 every time a person just walked into the room and talked for five minutes) from doctors and specialists later, I was discharged from the hospital just as 2025 started fading into 2026, and also just in time for my health insurance deductibles and max-out-of-pockets to reset. Fortunately, I was sent home with a much more potent version of steroids that doctors hope will continue to decrease the inflammation until the GI specialist appointment in early February 2026. I'm sticking with a pretty strict soft-foods diet for now to hopefully prevent further flare-up or inflammation issues, though this is again a trial-and-error approach each day to understand what works and what doesn't. Some days and nights are good; other days and nights are painful, miserable, and confusing. It's going to take a while to figure things out, and I'm hopeful that the GI specialists will be able to provide more insight and guidance on how to navigate this disease long-term so I can get back to some sense of normalcy in my daily life.