Since starting this journey to run a ½ marathon in an effort to raise awareness and help find a cure for Crohn’s disease, I have kind of been on a journey of self discovery. I know it is really cliché, but I don’t know exactly how else to describe it. Until I announced to the world that I had Crohn’s disease and started connecting with others that have it or ulcerative colitis, I was still in denial. Chris and I had always speculated that even after 2.5 years of finally being diagnosed that I was still not coming to terms with the disease and instead was constantly trying to figure out how to get back to my life before Crohn’s. In the last month, I have been working hard to move past thinking about life before Crohn’s and focus on how to actually start dealing with my new norm. This has meant countless hours of reading blogs, talking on message boards, ordering books to try new diets and to help cope with being diagnosed with a chronic illness in my 20s. I have decided as part of my therapy to write a blog about coming to terms with the disease and training for the marathon. And lets face it, if I have any hope of doing this race, I need to have some accountability so I will be posting my training schedule on my blog each week for my coach to review.
I will typically just talk about the highs and lows of training, as well has how my overall health is going, but today I decided to start with a little background info for everyone who is not familiar with Crohn’s disease. I guess I will start with my general health, I have never been an incredibly healthy, in fact looking back at high school and college it now seems funny to think that getting the stomach flu half a dozen times a year seemed “normal” to me. It was not until my last year of college that I actually went to see a gastroenterologist and they basically told me that I was under a huge amount of stress (wedding, graduation, moving, new job) and that everything would work itself out. After all of the “stresses”, I did get better however in January of 2006 I started first getting the “stomach flu” every few weeks and then it turned to once a week. It took several months and countless tests, but thanks to Dr Burkey in Williamsburg I was finally able to get a diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease in my ileum (where your small and large intestines meet) in the Spring of 2006.
It was bitter sweet being diagnosed because I was so used to a doctor saying, oh you have this, here take this medicine and you will be fine and with Crohn’s Disease they don’t have a clear answer on how to manage this incurable disease. One doctor might think you should do this….another thinks you should try this treatment. So far I have been under the care of three specialists and I am still more confused then ever, which is very hard for someone who always has to be in control of everything to deal with. And then when the medicine is actually helping, the controlling part of me still can’t deal with the thoughts of how long will the medicine last, what if I get sick again, what if I can’t walk the dog in the morning because I am in too much pain. These thoughts go through my head daily, which is enough to make anyone crazy. Luckily I have a fabulous husband, Chris, to keep me sane and a great network of friends and family.
So far I have been lucky, even though I still haven’t gone into full remission; I feel so much better on the medicine and only have blockages (really bad stomach flu in laymen’s terms) about twice a year. I also do not have many of the horrible symptoms that other’s suffering from the disease have, as I only really have to deal with waves of pain, nausea and bloating of my stomach which for the most part I have just learned to deal with as they come. A large part of dealing with Crohn’s disease is also diet as well, so I have learned how to avoid “trigger” foods that can cause my stomach to go into attack mode. For everyone that doesn’t know what Crohn’s Disease is, it is an auto-immune disease in which the body mistakes food, good bacteria and other materials for foreign and invading substances and launches an attack against them. I could go into greater detail, but I am going to do my best not to get into too much personal info. So that is basically my Crohn’s Disease in a nut shell or at least the condensed version. If anyone ever wants to know more details please feel free to contact me!
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Doctors love telling women they are "stressing themselves sick." I heard the same thing over and over. I was also sick a lot growing up with vague digestive problems.
We all have similar stories, and there is some comfort in that--for me at least!
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