“I practiced 2 hours the day before, but when I got to class I couldn’t remember ANYTHING. I ran out of the classroom and cried. I had to acknowledge my pain.”
‘Go to the ER IMMEDIATELY!’ The stabbing in my chest hurt more with every breath. ‘Probably just stress.’: Musician details experience with chronic illnesses, ‘Just getting out of bed each morning matters’
‘I looked at the poop bag and cried. ‘I’d rather die.’ I didn’t want my partner to stop loving me.’: Woman with ulcerative colitis advocates for stomas, ‘Every body is worthy’
“I was toxic. ‘You need emergency surgery.’ The thought of having a bag was the worst thing possible. I refused to discuss it.”
‘The doctor said, ‘How do you want to leave this hospital? With a poop bag or in a box?’ I denied consent 8 times.’: Woman with ulcerative colitis, ostomy bag says ‘you only get one body, love it!’
“I’d spent so long thinking no one would ever love me and then when I finally found the perfect, most precious man, I had to get a poo bag? I wanted to scream and cry and throw things. On my 26th birthday, I was looking death in the face.”
‘My boyfriend didn’t sign up for a sick girl. ‘I’d rather die than have a poop bag attached to me.’: Woman with ulcerative colitis learns to ‘love herself’ despite invisible illness
“How can an athletic, smart, strong young woman who has the entire world ahead of her have an incurable sickness? Even with a doctor’s note, my administration accused me of trying to get out of my contractual duties. ‘It’s ridiculous Jess keeps calling off. Does she expect us to cover her classes all of the time?’”
‘Two months before college graduation, my symptoms returned. The bloat, the blood, stomach pain, and fatigue.’: Young woman diagnosed with severe Ulcerative Colitis, ‘I felt I would never get my life back, now I embrace it all’
“‘Natalie. He died.’ I can still remember it like yesterday. Being woken up in my freshman year dorm from a call. All I remember next is screaming, ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ Dead. Died. Gone. As time went on, I started feeling sick. Very sick.”
‘What now?,’ is all that ran through my mind. ‘How did this happen to me?’ All the voices in the room disappeared. I was washed on a metal table with hoses that hung from the ceiling.’
“He instilled in my mind there was better out there. Someone who he didn’t have to help when I wasn’t feeling well, someone who he didn’t have to go to the ER with, someone who was ‘normal,’ who’s body was not scarred up. I said to my dad, ‘I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take this anymore.'”
‘I blurt out, ‘I want the surgery.’ I’ll never forget the look on his face. What kind of patient asks for a major life changing surgery? I kept replaying the conversation my mother and I had.’
“My mother was my best friend and I couldn’t accept she would be gone soon. I refused to discuss it with her until one day she said to me ‘You can ask me anything you want.’ That was all it took.”
‘People think it’s gross, but without this bag of poop on my stomach, I wouldn’t be here.’: Young woman diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, says life ‘isn’t fair,’ but it’s ‘downright beautiful’
“Growing up, I wasn’t grateful for anything. Then I got sick. I went from picture-perfect health to being too frail to even move. I was rushed to the ER. ‘We need to act fast!’ My heart stopped, my breathing hitched, and suddenly I knew what was coming. He lowered the mask onto my face, and I remember thinking ‘please’ over and over again.”
‘Our daddy needs a kidney’: Father’s desperate need for a transplant ‘to watch the boys grow up’
“Our 4-year-old worries if Daddy will be home in the morning to take him to school. Our little guy knows that Daddy’s kidneys are broken.”
