The other night, unexpectedly, a flash of pain in my stomach made me bolt up in bed. An old hand at GI issues, I knew the pain was further “upstream” than previous intestinal pain; and the combination of familiar and unfamiliar sensation troubled me. I twisted a bit and peeled off a layer before IContinue reading >>
The Pain of Repair
In retrospect, I should have predicted how bad the damage was. After more than a year of chronic pain, inability to digest much, vomiting blood, and severe loss of weight and hair, I should not have been surprised by the damage in my gut. When the time cam eto take out the scar tissue thatContinue reading >>
Ready to be good: when we want to help but don’t know how
God is always ready to bring about good. This doesn’t mean that the world is perfect, or that God always comes crashing in to undo our bad choices or bad luck. There is always goodness waiting to bubble up, even when the world is dark. If you have a driven personality like mine, maybe you’veContinue reading >>
Before and After
When my illness was at its worst, a few months before surgery put my Crohn’s into remission, close to half of my hair fell out. This is common when your body goes through trauma (women often deal with this after childbirth), and I knew it at the time. I also had enough hair to coverContinue reading >>
It’s OK to be sick
When I got sick, it was public. I was late and out sick often, I couldn’t be as social as I had been before, I lost a lot of weight and later a lot of hair. I know some people criticized me for how often wrote about my illness, but I didn’t know any otherContinue reading >>