New Decade, New Year, New Beginning. It seems to flow nicely, that sentence, doesn’t it? Of course, most beginnings don’t present themselves or occur so succinctly as a new calendar month, let alone year. Which makes a new beginning at new year, feels too neat for my sceptical mind. And even more so when this new beginning is around the topic of remission. The festive period always struck fear in…
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2020 Goals
YIKES was 2019 a huge year of change! Two big things changed – I lost my bum and I left my job. Both were painful but experiences I chose to go through. Not once did I think I had made a mistake. So as 2019 has concluded, as well as another decade, I am thinking deeply about what I would like to achieve for 2020. Here they are: …
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2019 – Year in Review
The blurriest year ever, it feels. It’s been a oddly quick year since Day One, to be honest. What can be taken from 2019 is that time definitely feels faster as I get older and wiser. I have spent this year battling myself. Both physically and mentally. I became more in tune with my own being as well as the responses my IBD throws at me. I’ve felt more in…
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Health Tracking – My IBD Care
Disclaimer: Occasionally, I am asked to review particular products and services. I work with those who I believe have IBD and ostomy patients’ best interests at heart. In light of this, all views and experiences shared on this blog are mine and of my own honest opinion, and do not reflect the official position of anyone I review for. To find out more about the My IBD Care app visit…
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Life Lately | Catching My Breath
Oh hey there, hello again. It’s been a while since I did a ‘me and my health’ update. Last time, I spoke about the final stages of my perianal wound healing and a quick GI update. Well, since then, I’ve had my wound close fully – celebrations all around! Only took six months of pure slog! – and I had a Vedolizumab infusion, which didn’t need any further antibiotic treatment…
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I do this alone.
I do all of *this* alone. IBD, it’s very isolating. Let’s face facts: it focuses on your digestive system, about what it produces. You endure tests and investigations for answers for everything – from your diagnosis, all the way through to getting treatment and management plans sorted – alone. You don’t have anyone to hold your hand. Well, at least I don’t. I have done all of my IBD investigations…
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Travelling with IBD and a Stoma
Let’s get out there! For the majority of people who live with IBD, they have to travel. Either commuting to and from their jobs or taking trips; some will rely on the public transport network – trains, buses and coaches – to do this. While I have been a commuter in my own transport, the majority of my working life – and thus my time being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease…
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Does Experience Make you Wise?
“Turn your wounds into wisdom” – Oprah Winfrey I remember going to my first outpatient appointment when I first felt ‘well‘ and I wondered when would I get used to this? It seemed impossible. It also seemed to be improbable too; who would want to get used to this? To the barrage of appointments, procedures and the fearful anxiety of a chronic illness? But there was something about the routine…
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September: Going Back to Zero
September is my New Year. When I went through surgery in August 2016, I’d completely overlooked the fact that five year previous I was going through the early stages of living with undiagnosed Crohn’s Disease. I suppose I did have bigger things to worry about at the time – a incision that would spilt open at a family gathering, an infection of that wound, sore peristomal skin, phantom rectum…