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

Every two weeks I take my Humira shot. No big deal. But, a couple days afterward the most wonderful thing happens. I poo. I mean, I take a dump . It's awesome. The thing is, I crap constantly. All the freaking time. Just not like this. This is one of those rare, deeply satisfying, glorious dumps. And I get to look forward to it every two weeks. It's a major source of joy in my life. And what's my immediate reaction every two weeks? What is the first thing I want to do as I saunter triumphantly from the bathroom? I want to tell people. I actively seek out someone to inform of the magnificent crap I just took. I'm genuinely disappointed if no one's around. My poor roommates.

It's Health Activist Choice Day again. So, what do I want to say? Well, there's this post I've been trying to write for a while now, but can't really seem to get a grasp on what it actually is. So, what I'm going to do is just force myself to write about it, and hopefully I turn out something worth posting. Let's see what happens. If you follow me on twitter and/or facebook, you probably read at least one of my (many, many) posts about my getting to meet Gloria Steinem. It was a pretty amazing day. I got to attend both an informal Q&A and then a more formal lecture later in the day. I was lucky enough to ask her a question in each setting. In response to my first question she told me to believe in myself. I mean, it's not a big deal or anything. ...Okay, she was telling all of the young feminists in the room, but she was looking right at me when she said it. And let me tell you, when your idol looks you right in the face and tells you to believe i...

Today, I'm talking about my writing process . How do my blog posts get from my head onto the internet? Well, most of the work comes before I actually sit down to write a post. I sometimes spend insane amounts of time thinking about a blog post before it actually ends up here for you all to read. The most recent example of this has been my Why I Named My Colon post. That one had been rolling around in my head since sometime in February. I'm not exactly sure why it took so long to actually write down. I think because it's such a funny thing to talk about, naming an organ, and yet it really had such a profound impact on my life. I wanted to make sure I was talking about it in a way that underscored the importance of this ultimately pretty silly thing that I did. Other times, the reason it takes me so long is because I want to make absolutely sure I'm coming at the subject in the right way. This was the case with my post about pep talks . That post could have so easily b...

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 ...