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

The best conversation I had this week, huh?  Well, that's pretty easy. On Monday I got to hang out with a former professor from my first school (Cottey College, what up?!). We spent a long time just catching up, but we also talked about Crohn's for a while. Well, I talked a lot. It wasn't until after I left that I realized I had rambled on for a really long time. Probably longer than absolutely necessary. Certainly longer than I usually do. Anyway, the interesting thing about this particular conversation was that we originally met not too long after I was diagnosed. She knew I had Crohn's, but we never really talked about it. Actually, we never talked about it at all. I think the most communicating I ever did was to send her an email or two when I was too sick to make it out of my dorm room. I never applied for disability with the school or anything. I was so uncomfortable with the whole idea of having a chronic disease back then... I pretty much refused to deal with ...

I've started to write this particular post several times in the last couple months, and today is health activist's choice for HAWMC, which means I get to write about whatever I want. So, I figure now's the time to get it out there. I've written several times about how I named my colon, but I never really specified why, and I think that's pretty important. The truth is that I didn't even know why I was doing it at first. I was going through a really rough flare and reading Are You My Guru: How Medicine, Medication & Madonna Saved My Life   by Wendy Shanker  (which you should totally pick up). I had read a review of the book on Feministing.com and it sounded really interesting, so I bought it on Amazon. At one point, Wendy visits some sort of non-western medicine practitioner (I can't remember the proper terminology, it was a while ago...) and is asked whether she's named her liver, the organ that was causing the most trouble for her at the time...

The scene: You're sitting on a comfy couch having a conversation with a good friend or a family member. Someone you're very close to. Maybe you're having a cup of coffee/tea or a glass of wine. It's been a good night of sharing with someone you trust. The issue you're talking about doesn't necessarily have to be Crohn's, but let's say it is. You're feeling comfortable, so you are very honest about your experience. You decide it's okay, just for a moment, to let go of that tone of optimism you normally adopt when speaking about your disease. It's not that you've actually given up hope, you're just tired. After you finish your tale, your friend/family member looks at you lovingly and says something like, "you're the strongest person I know" or, my personal favorite, "it'll just make you stronger in the end." I've been trying to write this post for a while now, and I've been having a lot of troub...