Happy Birthday, Little scar

2 years since my operation, and I can’t believe how much my life has changed. No time, energy or inclination for a long post- but I couldn’t knowingly let today go by without posting about it! 

I was in so much pain, so confused and so out of it, and now everything is different. Yes, I still post about hard days and bad days and pains and discomforts but I can live an almost normal life, I can eat what I want , I’m not in agonising pain and I am not throwing up. Today makes me feel grateful. 

Here’s hoping life stays good and happy

H c

Welcoming in the New Year :)

Happy New Year all!

I know…so late…my bad with the lack of blog posts – I have been so busy since Christmas Eve that I really haven’t had time to be posting, and now I am back at university and truly thrust into the middle of it all with a crazy amount of deadlines and work to be getting on with, not to forget the minor stress of having to make some pretty huge life decisions in the next few weeks/  months with regards to what I am going to be doing after graduation. gulp.

So since I last posted I have been busy busy busy, mainly seeing family and just enjoying the festive period. Its been so lovely to visit everyone at Christmas time, and play all the crazy traditional games and laugh and be happy and just appreciate how much I have in my life, compared to where I was last year. My New Years was lovely; I went with my boyfriend into London and spent some time together, and went for dinner, then went to meet his brother in a club for midnight; then he spent the next few days at mine spending time with my family, I couldn’t have asked for anything better!

Last year I spent a quite new years in with my auntie – which was exactly what I needed and I actually had such a sweet evening and was just so grateful to be out of hospital! But it just was another point of reflection, you realy don’t appreciate what you have until you nearly lose it all. (okay, maybe a little dramatic, but you get th epoint 😉 )

I am really appreciating my lack of chroness-ness right now, the levels of stress I am going under (and the attempt at dieting) would just have not been possible to cope with a year and a half ago when I was at my worst, and I just realise how much my life has changed – and I know that is pretty much all I have said every other sentence but I think that’s because sometimes I don’t just stop and think about life until I am sat here writing these posts; and I cant think of anything more important than realising how lucky I am with what I have, and who is in my life – and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Sorry for slow flow of blogging- and my pretty dull posts, but I would much rather be waffling on about my life than filling you in with the gruesome details of my last treatment or last crying session. So, thank you for sticking with me through all of that – here is to onwards and upwards and to happier times 🙂

H xxx

1year and 4 days old

Happy birthday to my blog!
As of December 3rd it was officially one year old, and what a year it has been!
Looking back at my first post is crazy – so much has changed I’m almost a new person.
Everything about my life is different,  and for the better. I am happy, healthy, sociable,  stronger, everything – it is crazy for me to yhink back onto what it was like.
I remember writing that first post being sat on the beanbag in the corner of my room last year, curled up and in pain, crying periodically and being unable to work and function socially.  oh, hoe times have changed.
I think back on how I’ll I was. And it’s unbelievable,  it’s mad ti think I never realised how Ill I was, it happened so gradually that I never totally understood until the end.
I think crohns pain became a little like child birth, that pain is so intense and so all consuming that afterwards although you know you were in pain you physically can’t remember or imagine quite how bad it was…although I have obviously never given birth so I will let you know after that if ny analogy still stands 😉

There havr been high points, low points and many in between.  I gained a boyfriend and new friends along the way, but also lost two grandparents and a lot of time last year.  There is no way to know how different my life, and my personality,  could be right now – but so much has changed and this post is just about… Well that really! 

Sometimes taking a minute to realise how much has changed is all that is needed!

H xx

Pot Luck

This illness of mine, its a fickle beast.

Sometimes it strikes hard and fast, a crippling blow to the body and soul; and in others it just kind of drifts around the peripherals of your life, always there but not always being felt. I am one of the lucky ones right now, I am in remission and loving it. But I see and hear of so many people who have it so much worse, whose bodies are still being ravaged by the disease and who are unable to continue to live their daily lives. I guess I was lucky that my Crohns got so bad so quickly, it was within a year of diagnosis that I had to have an operation. From going to just having really loud tummy rumbles to being unable to walk and being half carried into an ambulance due to pain – that’s drastic. My life changed and switched upside down, nothing was the same – but it did happen so fast that drastic action was taken and quickly, my operation that changed everything happened so fast. I am grateful that it got so bad so fast, that it was sorted so quickly. And quite a bit f that may have been to do with the fact I was on private healthcare due to my dads work – but regardless I would have been put in for an operation after my A and E visit.

I guess this post is a rambler, sorry – it just struck me again the other da how much stuff has changed for me in this past year, and how a year ago I would never have seen myself here, ever. Aside from that, I guess I am one of the lucky ones. Its important to remember that sometimes I think

H xx

#getyourbellyout

I know I have posted about this already, but just wanted you to know – I did it. I made the jump. I posted this on my social media sites – facebook and instagram are now up to date 😉 it was a big decision for me to put it onto facebook, now everybody knows. I don’t want judgements, or pity; I don’t want sympathy or revulsion – I just want to spread awareness. I don’t expect any big revolution to come from it, I know all that will happen is a few likes or comments. But to me, its one of the biggest steps I have taken. Its out there now, lets embrace it.

H x

PS – it has already got a comment from a girl I used to be in halls with saying how she suffers from IBD too, and that thank you for pointing it out and how she never knew etc, I guess there are people everywhere going through the same thing, but we just need to put it out there loud and proud until everyone does it. I always felt so isolated embarrassed and alone – but seeing all these other people gave me the push to do it. I hope that I can push others too as well !

Tappity Tap tap

I love the fact that I don’t have a new moan, a new pain, to write about every day now. I hope it demonstrates to everyone out there that there are good and bad times. Fingers crossed that this lasts for a while, but I have to be realistic in the fact that it may not. All I can do is hope! I will continue to blog (sorry to anyone who thought that listening to my ramblings was nearly over 😉 ) because Crohns is still a part of me and of my daily life, whether it is actively causing me pain or not.

Just thought I would give you an update on my life at the moment. So tomorrow I am back to the doctors for an ECG and blood test – although neither are Crohns related! I was a bit concerned when I was in hospital over Christmas (okay, that bit is Crohnies playing up!) they were saying how my heart rate was quite fast a lot of the time, and seemed to monitor it a lot so I decided to just get it checked up now I am back at uni and everything 🙂
So, theres that. But otherwise I am in big rehersal mode! I am in a dance show this weekend with the university, my first one in years and years and my first ever tap one. I am SO excited! Although a little bit nervous too, since we performed infront of the others in the show (about 200 others) and I got the shakes very badly, but I think its a good experience! I remember trying to plan my operation; originally it wasn’t due to have happened yet it was due to happen over Easter and I was trying to plot it around Pure Dance (the show) and working out if I could go. Then it got moved forward to the end of January after exams, and I was concerned I would miss the show..then it happened as an emergency. But, on a positive, I only missed one rehersal in the time that I stayed at home for longer after the end of the Christmas holidays, and I caught up so quickly on the routine after being determined not to let Crohnies get in the way of that too! I just appreciate this so much more than everyone else I think, the fact that I CAN be in the show and enjoy it. My biggest worry is if I will fall over or do it wrong, as opposed to if I will even be able to walk to university because I have such bad cramps.

…its weird…writing that. I hadn’t really thought about it, my operation shouldn’t have happened yet. It if went to the original plan. I sit here typing this and looking at my scar, and it seems so much a part of me; and my life quality has increased so much since it happened…I cant imagine still waking every morning to the fear of waiting and seeing if the cramps and the pain was coming. I have never been so thankful that something happened in an emergency situation. It saved my lifestyle and my happiness; a bit dramatic maybe but it truly changed the way I was able to live my life. I have been able to do so many things, including joining the trampolining society, and all of these are things that wouldn’t have been available to me even 5 months ago. Madness. I am so, so thankful.

H x