Anyway, last week, American Idol viewers were shocked to see that lovable  Casey Abrams was absent from the Thursday results show, due to him once again being in the hospital. Not since Season 1 of American Idol has any contestant missed an elimination show, which caused viewers to start to wonder what the hell was really going on with poor Casey, who almost missed the Top 24 performance night as well.

This, of course, is reminiscent of last year’s “Crystalgate” episode, where Crystal Bowersox landed in the hospital as a result of her diabetes and producers switched the women’s and men’s dates so that she could recover. (Despite everyone thinking that the producers were so nice to do this for Crystal, it’s not true. She was actually officially kicked off the show by Executive Producer Ken Warwick, while lying in a hospital bed. It wasn’t until she kicked, cried, screamed and threatened to go to the highest executives (and probably the media) that she was allowed back on the show. She talks about this whole thing in this article.)

Crystal, who noted on Twitter that Casey is her favorite, even tweeted him her support, telling him to “…stay in this game, Casey. Don’t be afraid to say no sometimes. I’m rooting for you.”

Anyway,Nigel Lythgoe,  another Executive Producer from the show, tweeted that Casey had been released from the hospital over the weekend. That’s a long time to be in the hospital. So what’s going on?

According to reports, Casey is suffering from Ulcerative Colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease which affects the lining of the large intestine. (Yikes.) He’s already had two blood transfusions,which obviously indicates his condition is very serious.

Some of the symptoms of Ulcerative Colitis include abdominal pain and cramping,abdominal sounds (a gurgling or splashing sound heard over the intestine–YIKES),blood and pus in the stools, diarrhea, fever and rectal pain. This thing is no joke.

Poor Casey. Not only does he seem like an overall fun guy (someone I’d totally want to get a beer with–if he was legal, of course), but he is one of the best singers from Season 10. He’s honestly the bright spot in the group…the rest of them are kind of boring, sorry.

The Ashley is sending lots of positive vibes to Casey! Ya’ll should do the same!

He seems to be doing OK, and is still being generally hilarous. I love his latest Twitter tweet from today:

I AM out of the hospital, feeling so energetic too. I owe it all to #Tigerblood

That was nice of Charlie Sheen to help him out…LOL.