I did a medical trial where I got paid to spend 3 weeks in hospital in exchange for monies. I did a load of painting, though they would only let me paint in the recreation room and not while in bed. It's sort of the same, sort of not. You can always ask? Make sure to tell them the paints are non-toxic and don't smell and have a tray of some kind that would catch spills. Otherwise a laptop and lots of ebooks, movies, ect would be the way to go.
My housemate has had serious medical/digestion issues for years (still not exactly diagnosed though they're narrowing it down). Her gasterenterologist has been pretty useless and closed minded e.g. refusing to believe she partially addressed problematically low levels of certain minerals in her blood tests just by adjusting her diet to include lots of food rich in them, which is what she did.
I suggest you spend some time doing some googling / research on it. Read over websites dedicated to Chron's. Try and look at online forums where people who suffer from it themselves talk about it and what makes it better and worse for them. Mainstream medical opinion is important but not gospel or the be all and end all. The modern medical system (encouraged by the profit motives of the pharmaceutical companies) goes strongly in a direction of over-medicating people at every turn and not giving enough attention to diet or other factors in causing or addressing diseases (there's no profit in it).
I did a quick google on Chron's as I couldn't remember exactly what it was, followed by googling Chron's and diet. I've only looked into it briefly but it certainly looks like diet plays an important role and that adjusting diet can help.
As it's an inflamatory disease then regularly eaiting anti-inflamatory food would likely help too. I add Turmeric and/or Ginger to the majority of the meals I cook, as they're extremely healthy, tasty and some of the strongest anti-inflamtory foods there are. A good tip is to chop up some ginger root and put it in a jug of water, that you drink and refil throughout the day. It means you're constantly getting a low level of anti inflamatory into your system throughout the day - someone at work found this helped her joint pain. I did a quick google to see if ginger and the like help Chron's and see someone on an online Chron's forum who says ginger helps more than their meds -
http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=13034There was apparently a study done in Japan looking at Chron's where they put one group onto a vegetarian diet and the other ate as normal. Two years later the majority of those on the regular diet had again been affected by Chron's while 92% of those on the vegetarian diet had been free of it for the two years. I'd want to read around more as this is just something I stumbled across but it certainly sounds like diet can have a big effect. Linky -
http://nutritionfacts.org/2012/09/13/di ... s-disease/ Once youre out of hospital I would suggest including high levels or anti-inflamatory foods in your diet and probably trying a vegan diet. It might be challenging to begin with but it's certainly doable and if it could help your health and wellbeing it's surely worth a try. You don't necesarily have to do it forever but try it for a few months and see how you feel.
Hope they let you paint and good luck!
