SURGERY #2: The Aftermath

When we last left off, I was fresh out of surgery and my mental state was precarious at best. Read on to discover just how low I sunk… and how high I have risen since!

The first two weeks after my surgery were the hardest for me. Not physically – that was difficult, yes, but not for long – but mentally. I felt like I had been dropped from a plane into a pit: flying high to suddenly sink desperately low,  no rope or ladder connecting the two. No way to carry myself back out of the depths. 

Continue reading “SURGERY #2: The Aftermath”

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…and getting it back again

Happy belated World IBD Day! What better time to get back into blogging? If you read my last post, you’ll know that I was in a bad place in the early months of the year. Now? Well, not much has actually changed, honestly. I’m still experiencing the same symptoms as ever. Infliximab might as well be saline for all the good it’s done me, after six months/five infusions. Exam season is upon us, stress is oozing out of my every pore, and I have an MRI booked for June because my bloods aren’t showing any kind of improvement. By rights, I ought to be feeling as terrible as I did in February. But now things feel different, and I’m in a better position to explain exactly what was going on in my head then (and now!). I want to document everything – the good and the bad – and that starts with explaining why I’ve been so silent these last few months.

Happy belated World IBD Day! What better time to get back into blogging? If you read my last post, you’ll know that I was in a bad place in the early months of the year. Now? Well, not much has actually changed, honestly. I’m still experiencing the same symptoms as ever. Infliximab might as well be saline for all the good it’s done me, after six months/five infusions. Exam season is upon us, stress is oozing out of my every pore, and I have an MRI booked for June because my bloods aren’t showing any kind of improvement. By rights, I ought to be feeling as terrible as I did in February. But now things feel different, and I’m in a better position to explain exactly what was going on in my head then (and now!). I want to document everything – the good and the bad – and that starts with explaining why I’ve been so silent these last few months.

Continue reading “…and getting it back again”

(My) Mental Health and IBD

It’s World IBD Day! It’s Mental Health Awareness Week! I hope both of them are good to you. It’s quite an intersection of ‘awareness days’, isn’t it, considering the mental toll IBD exacts? So there’s no better time to write about when the two collide spectacularly! Here’s my tale…

It’s World IBD Day! It’s Mental Health Awareness Week! I hope both of them are good to you. It’s quite an intersection of ‘awareness days’, isn’t it, considering the mental toll IBD exacts? So there’s no better time to write about when the two collide spectacularly! Here’s my tale…

Continue reading “(My) Mental Health and IBD”

expectations

I am having quite a hard day.

There’s not really any single thing making it hard. I woke up at a fairly normal time, spent my customary hour in the bathroom, and then had my usual post-ablutions snooze. Yes, really, the exhaustion is so real that something as simple as emptying my bowels (wow, talk about clinical vocabulary) and taking a shower takes ALL of the energy out of me!!

Continue reading “expectations”