For anyone who has UC, Chrons or any kind of auto immune disease, the relief of reaching ‘remission’ is soon dampened with the sheer terror of having another ‘flare’ or relapse.
For me (6 months into first remission), it still feels like there is a huge elephant in the room – watching me with his beady little eyes.
It’s been about six months since my initial UC diagnosis, and I wanted to share the story so far and update on the battle with who/what to believe.
One of the most infuriating things about UC is that nobody knows what causes it, or how to cure it (at least not yet). It is commonly believed to be an underlying genetic thing (in the medical community) – so if you’re meant to get it you probably will at some stage or another. I don’t know how much I believe this, and often wonder what life would be like if I hadn’t gotten food poisoning just over a year ago and awakened the beast.
I don’t like the term ‘diet’ – to me that word conjures up thoughts of being punished or restricted, which isn’t an aspiration for me. I want to have my occasional crunchie bars AND my tender-stem broccoli – but sometimes it pays to listen to your gut (something I didn’t do until recently).
Prior to summer 2015 ‘illness’ or in any case serious illness was not something I’d ever experienced, which in hindsight now makes me feel very lucky to have been that naive for so long.
After a chance case of food poisoning (a dodgy lobster and a LOT of alcohol) at the work summer party, combined with a few months of work-life imbalance and personal stress – I managed to get Ulcerative Colitis. Of course at the time I didn’t know what those words even meant, let alone that some permanent damage was being caused inside me.
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