Posts tagged ‘caregiving’
Recap from IBD Social Circle
As I mentioned previously, I recently spent four days in Washington, D.C. as part of the IBD Social Circle, sponsored by Janssen Biotech. The IBD Social Circle is the online movement dedicated to bridging communications gaps and inspiring and educating the IBD community. It was formed a year ago with seven activists and is now comprised of a group of about 20 IBD activists from across the country.
World IBD Day 2015- A Day of Thanks
Today, May 19, marks the observance of World IBD Day, a day led by patient organizations across four continents to raise awareness and educate the public about inflammatory bowel diseases. Around the world, more than 5 million people live with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, two debilitating digestive diseases that have detrimental effects on patients physically, emotionally, financially, and more. I know that my blog has been stagnant for months, but I figured today was a great day to return to it.
On World IBD Day last year, I talked about feeling defeated by the lack of progress being made for IBD patients. I was feeling pessimistic after the passing of a young IBD patient and a segment on a major news station that confused IBD with IBS. After a lot of thinking, I decided this year I wanted to be more optimistic.
I just returned from spending four days in Washington, D.C. as part of the IBD Social Circle, the online movement dedicated to bridging communications gaps and inspiring and educating the IBD community. While there, I got to spend time with some incredible IBD activists, like Ally Bain (the girl behind Ally’s Law/Restroom Access Act), Laura of Mangia Paleo, Brian of the Intense Intestines Foundation, Stephanie of The Stolen Colon, and so many more. I also was provided the opportunity to attend Digestive Disease Week, the world’s largest gathering of physicians and researchers in gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy, and gastrointestinal surgery. After spending a weekend surrounded by strong, passionate advocates and bloggers talking about Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, I decided that this year’s post would be dedicated to thanks.
2013: Year in Review
Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!
This past year has been an exciting one for Dan and I, both online and offline. In the past year, Caring for Crohn’s & UC expanded incredibly- while I wrote far fewer posts than last year, the blog received over 19,000 views and gained This year, Caring for Crohn’s & UC exploded beyond my wildest dreams, having over 19,000 views by over 10,000 visitors, and gained 45 WordPress followers, 9 Tumblr followers, 131 Facebook fans and 213 Twitter followers. (Disclaimer: I am a huge analytics nerd, so please forgive me for being so excited over these numbers :-)) Thank you all SO much for your continued readership and support- while I haven’t kept up with posting as frequently as I want to, I am so happy that the content I wrote over the past two years has reached so many of you. It’s all in the name of raising awareness and educating others about inflammatory bowel diseases.
Enough about the numbers- here are some of my 2013 highlights.
Back to School with IBD
Sorry for the hiatus again- I am still getting situated into a new commuting lifestyle and figuring out how to balance my time between work and the blog is proving to be challenging. My plan is to continue to blog but I am not sure how frequently it’ll happen. That being said, I will do my best to make the posts that I do write extra special!
The start of the school year reminded me of those days and made me think about all the young kids and teenagers I know who have Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. I don’t have children but I can sympathize what it’s like to go to school feeling different. I spent my junior year of high school in and out of classes because of severe anxiety and agoraphobia that eventually landed me at home for the rest of the school year (I’ll elaborate more on that in another post).
Going to school can be difficult when you have an illness but it can be especially hard when you have IBD. A nurse at Seattle Children’s Hospital recently authored a blog post for the hospital’s website with tips for heading back to school with IBD. The tips were very informative and I wanted to share them and elaborate on them.
IBD Medical Terms in Plain Language
I was going through my Twitter feed the other day and came across something from Care Novate Magazine, an online resource that provides information on caregiving, social media and medical literacy. It’s a really cool idea and I spent awhile going through the site, which is how I came up with this post.
The most difficult part of living with a chronic illness like IBD is understanding what your doctors tell you. No matter how hard they try, medical jargon is still used in explanations, and a lot of the time, patients and their loved ones don’t fully understand what’s going on.
Huffington Post: Why I Celebrated Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week
In the excitement of Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week and the #PurpleChallenge, I completely forgot to share with you my exciting news- I wrote another piece on Crohn’s for HuffingtonPost.com!
In case you missed it, in August, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on what it’s like to be a caretaker for someone with Crohn’s Disease. After writing that and the great feedback I got from those who read it, I knew I wanted to write another piece sometime soon. After racking my brain I realized my next topic was right in front of me- why I celebrate Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week.
Here’s an excerpt of my post:
Six years ago, I had not heard of Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. I lived in a world where I was blissfully unaware of inflammatory bowel diseases, where the debilitating symptoms didn’t impact my life. Then I met my now-husband Dan, and everything changed.
Dan was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease just two weeks after we started dating in 2007. Now, six years later, we have been through the gamut with the disease. He’s been on three different medications, with one of them making it nearly impossible for him to function because of severe fatigue. Now, instead of taking oral medication, Dan receives an IV infusion every six weeks at the doctor’s office. He’s had three different gastroenterologists. He’s been hospitalized for a post-colonoscopy infection and an intestinal blockage. Most recently, he had part of his small intestines removed in order to treat the disease.
Check out the full post here.
Caring for Crohn's & UC 