Old age is not for sissies

For years, I have suffered some general GI disturbances.  I don't want to go into too much detail here about all of that.  But I did decide I must have a gluten sensitivity.  From time to time, and not for long, I try to avoid gluten.  Sometimes it seems to help but I never stay off the gluten long enough to be sure.  So recently, when I was having a routine colonoscopy, I mentioned to the doctor that I thought I had a gluten sensitivity and I gave her my reasons for thinking that.  So I got a couple of biopsies, lots of new blood work and I had to drop off a stool sample.  Yuck!  She told me that I had a moderately inflamed small intestine and it looked like I might be deficient in B12 and folate.  How could this be?  I take vitamins every day.  She suggested a form of colitis, perhaps Crohn's disease.  Do I look like someone who is losing weight?  Well, it turns out that the specimen revealed an infection - C. Diff to be exact.  This is a disease of old people who live in nursing homes or have been in the hospital on antibiotics.  I may be old but I haven't been in a nursing home in more than a decade, I haven't been on any antibiotics and I retired from working at the hospital 18 months ago.   Tomorrow I pick up my 10 day prescription of Flagyl.  We will see how or if that helps and take it from there.  There may be more going on than just C. Diff.