October 2014 – The Great Bowel Movement

Let Me Tell You About My Crohn’s

by Comment Closed

This special IBD Awareness Week guest post comes from Alyssa, a brave and wise Crohn’s patient, but let’s let her introduce herself. I am Alyssa. I am 23. As of this past July, I have Crohn’s disease. I have a whole diagnosis story, but I’ll spare you the gross details. I spent the first month after my diagnosis trying to get my body on track and relieved that I had a name for my combination of crazy symptoms. I was afraid. I woke up almost every night thinking that this would be the night that I would need to go to the hospital. The pain scared me. My whole life seemed to all of the sudden revolve around Crohn’s. Maybe it would go away. I mean, how could it not, with the 10+ pills that I was taking each day? I told a few close friends that I was sick, but I belittled my disease. I was so afraid that they...

Running to the Bathroom

by Comment Closed

It’s race day. The air is cool, the sun is low, adrenaline is high. The crowds are gathering near the start and off to the side, there is a very, very long line for the portapotty. EVERYONE is obsessing over having to go. Waiting in that line, a line that I hope is moving quickly, I wonder how many other people are having the same anxieties as me because I’m not just obsessing, I really need to go. I’m not just hoping that I can empty my bladder and bowel before the race, but I can feel an urgency that very rapidly will become an immediate need. We all know what this is like. The “oh no, I need a bathroom and I need it now!” revelation is never fun, particularly when it’s accompanied by a bout of abdominal pain. So last May, as I congregated with 20,000 friends in Brooklyn, ready to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon, I found myself...

Relationships, Marriage, and IBD

by Comment Closed

Just like we did with our Parenting Perspective, we sat down to chat with two IBD activists about how their marriages work in the face of IBD. This special conversational post compares two perspectives – one spouse who has Crohn’s, with that of a spouse who is a caregiver. You may know Ryan Stevens of The Crohn’s Disease Survival Guide. Ryan is a long time patient of Crohn’s, and is working on his second attempt to swim across Lake Erie for funding and awareness. On the other hand, we have Rebecca Kaplan, blogger at Caring for Crohn’s, who is not a patient, but has seen and cared for IBD first hand. GBM: Tell us about yourself and your spouse. How does IBD affect your family? Were you together when the diagnosis happened, or were you/your partner already diagnosed when you started dating? Rebecca: My husband Dan has Crohn’s Disease. We began dating two months before he was diagnosed in 2007 and have been married...