Each doctor and hospital you visit keep a medical record for you that includes information on your diagnoses, test results, treatment plans, medications, and more. While some information may overlap, each record contains only a small piece of the total picture of your medical history. Because your medical information can be spread out among various doctors, it’s a good idea to assemble your own copy of all your records that…
IBD
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‘Post Operative’ – what exactly is meant by this?
post-operative/adjective 1. during, relating to, or denoting the period following a surgical operation. Introduction Postoperative care is the care you receive after a surgical procedure. The type of postoperative care you need depends on the type of surgery you have, as well as your health history. It often includes pain management and wound care. Postoperative care begins immediately after surgery. It lasts for the duration of your hospital stay and…
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Good & Bad Days
Isn’t it the height of irony that I had to delay this post by a week because I wasn’t well? But it does prompt a good question or at least topic of discussion: How do we deal with good and bad days? I say ‘we’, I mean those who have a chronic illness. And it stands to reason that our good days can vary. Either in how ‘good’ they are…
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2022 Goals
I’ve been doing yearly goals for five years now, ever since I got my stoma. And most years, it’s been either ‘stay on medication / in remission’ or ‘get x, y, z fixed’. Well, I am hoping for 2022 to have no surgery. I am hoping to continue on my medication and have everything ticking over so that I can focus on getting my career back on track. I do,…
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2021 Year in Review
Yet another wild and wacky year. Another twelve months of the lifting of restrictions and getting all the vaccinations. It has flown by, yet again, and even looking back it doesn’t feel real, that 2021 is coming to a close. I tried to set more loose and flexible goals for 2021. As for goals, I set myself the following: And well, we can safely say that a lot of this…
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Christmas and the Festive Season with IBD
It’s been almost four years since I made anything about Christmas, the festive period and how being chronically ill can make this time a little different to others. My past four Christmases have been pretty varied, from working during the period to being able to go home and celebrate with family. We’ve travelled home for the period, cooked our own Christmas dinner and actually forwent it once when I was…
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“Do I wonder about life without IBD?”
I get often get asked, “do I wonder about life without IBD?” and my answer? Sure I do! I think it’s somewhat natural to wonder about life, in general. The path taken versus the path not taken. Unfortunately, when it comes to chronic illness, there is no ‘path not taken’, we did not do this to ourselves. So while I do wonder about my life if I hadn’t had my…
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Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Week
As Awareness Week comes to a close today, I wanted to share my previous efforts for awareness week back in 2018 and some reminders for how I personally go about trying to focus on letting my IBD not rule my everyday life. While at times it does become more prominent, I do try and get some distance from it. IBD might be a large part of life, it is only…
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Awareness Week – Change in Perspective & Outlook
Part of #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek How I think about myself and the life I want to live has changed since having IBD. I’d never really been sick before I was diagnosed with IBD. So the first thing I contended with was how what I thought my life was going to be like, changed. It wasn’t an overnight thing but gradually as I got better after being so unwell, there was a certain…