13.06.16 I stared down at the box of tablets in some sort of disbelief. How did it get to this, needing to take anti depressants? It’s week five of my post op recovery. I had surgery in mid- May on my bowel and to remove a cyst on my ovary. Things were going well; I was healing from my incisions and I was getting back to a normal diet. Then…
crohns disease
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Painkiller Addiction – My Other Recovery
Despite being chronically ill for the past four years, I’ve never thought of myself as needing painkillers to get through the bad days. Not that my bad days weren’t bad, I was just able to manage my pain. But surgery changed all that. I had planned IBD surgery on my bowel in May 2016 and the one thing I was terrified was the pain I was going to go through. I knew…
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Life Lately | Making Progress
Just when you think things aren’t going anywhere, life pulls you back in. If you’ve been following me for a while now, you’ll probably know that I haven’t work since before my first surgery in May last year. In fact, loosing my job was a big factor is why I finally chose to have surgery when I did. There was a plan to retrain after I had recovered from my Right…
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A Day in the Life – The ROManTIC Trial
Two weeks ago, I was invited to the Royal College of Surgeons in London for discussions of a new trial for Ileocecal Crohn’s patients. This has been the first time I’d been invited – well, I had sought out this day for my own medical geeky-ness – to participate in something so formal and important as a possible trial. Its objective was to gain the perspectives of both patients and…
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Stoma Nurses; What makes them so important?
A couple weeks ago I got the chance to interview my stoma nurse about her job role; this is Q & A with Nicola Jennings: Stoma Care Nurse at Good Hope Hospital in the Heart of England NHS Trust. What is a stoma nurse? The title for the role at the hospital I work is ‘Colorectal Specialist Nurse’, this incorporates stoma care. They are specialist’s registered nurses wo have gained additional…
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When Will My Life Begin?
Last week, I had seberal rough days when I was full of self doubt and getting utterly frustrated with many aspects of my life. I wasn’t going to share how upset and angry I had been feeling but I thought, no, I am not going to deny myself this part of recovering and having a chronic illness. Here is the note I wrote to myself in the depths of feeling…
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REVIEW: ‘Managing IBD: A Balanced Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease’ by Jenna Farmer
Follow Jenna on Twitter @abalancedbelly and check out her website: www.abalancedbelly.co.uk Initial Thoughts “Managing IBD: A Balanced Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease” is just that, a balanced guide to navigating a diagnosis and life with IBD. Jenna was diagnosed in China after suffering with IBS for almost ten years prior. The pressing need to find out information – in English – and pursue good care in a foreign country, led…
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Acceptance
Lately, people have been asking me how I’ve become so okay with how my life currently is. I think they mean to ask ‘how have you been able to accept your stoma so well?’ because it’s only been a little over six months since my operation. I think it’s down to three things, really: I have lived with a chronic illness for five years. I’ve had all that time to…
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Life Lately | Finding Space to Relax
Life, right now, isn’t busy for me but it’s a complete struggle to relax. I say ‘busy’ in the traditional sense that I still currently unemployed so I don’t have a Monday to Friday 9-5 keeping me occupied. But, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working. I’ve been spending my time writing and working on improving my ‘blogging game’ pretty much since 2017 started. Despite this, once I am through…