Crohn's Chronicles: A blog about Crohn's Disease

Denial is a way of life for me. I’m not in pain. I didn’t get sick twice last night. I can make it through the day. I’ll be fine. I don’t need help. I could go without my medication today. I don’t need a doctor. I’m good. Today is going to be better. I'm fine. When does positivity turn into denial? Am I lying to myself when I think, “You can do it, just keep on going.”  Or am I just staying upbeat? Where is the line drawn? Call it mind over matter if you want. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with that expression. More than anything, I want a place where I can talk about my disease. No one talks. Denial is not just internal, it is forced on you. We all do it. When someone says, "It will just make you stronger in the end!" they negate and deny what I go through everyday. There is no end. It's chronic.  You blame me for my disease, blame me for letting it get this bad, when at every turn you are denying me a place to talk about it. How messed up is that? I'm starti...

As I sat on the ugly yellow floor of the bathroom in my suite my first semester at Cottey College, I wondered what was happening to me that my body would rebel against itself so violently. What was happening to me that I would wake up at five o’clock in the morning with a pain in my back far beyond anything I had ever felt before and proceed to get sick seven times within two hours? I had no control over my body, and after those two hours nothing had improved. Luckily, one of my suitemates got up early to study for a test and discovered me hobbling back to my bedroom. She rushed me to the local emergency room where they ushered me into triage and asked me a series of questions, one of them being the most pointless question ever to be uttered by a human tongue, “Can you tell me how much pain you are in? Just on a scale of one to ten?” I looked up at her from the keeled over position I had been in for nearly three hours by that time and muttered, “Ten.” Although, what I wanted to say was...

My dancing body. I pause at the barre, my stomach cramps and fondues are too much for me to handle. Close my eyes… gurgle, gurgle… relief. I can keep going. My weight fluctuates. One week I have no appetite. I drop five pounds. The next, I’m ravenous and gain it back plus some. I eat when I want to, because in an hour it could be a different story. Be careful though. Don’t want your rumblings to disturb the other students. Maybe just a light snack. Nope, bad idea. I get weird looks from the other students. I grimace and smile, always making light of it, got to keep other people comfortable. Internally, I curse Myrtle. That’s my colon. Yes, I’ve named her. Like Moaning Myrtle, the ghost from Harry Potter who lives in toilets? I got the idea from a book. Myrtle doesn’t care for tights and a leotard. Too constricting, puts pressure in all the wrong places. Grumble, grumble…