Crohn’s isn’t just a terrible disease – it’s embarrassing!

My Crohn’s disease seems to be getting worse. I think I’ll have to go and see my gastrointernologist again soon. My medications just aren’t working.

We had guests over last weekend and we went out several times – we went to the very crowded and disappointing Taste of the Danforth, the beach, a private beach club, our for dinner and so on. All in all we had nine people staying in our home over three days.

It was too much for me. I already wasn’t feeling well before our guests arrived and now I’m spending the remainder of the week recovering from their visit. I think they made my crohn’s worse.

This is a terrible disease. I won’t get into all the symptoms, but when you have crohn’s your bowels – large or small intestines – are inflamed and can end up having scar tissue build up narrowing the intestines, abscesses can develop and you can’t digest foods very well. It causes a lot of pain and sometimes it can even cause a loss of control because, well there’s no other way to say this, but if you have crohn’s you probably have the runs a lot.

I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t actually had many accidents but I’d be lying if I said I’d never had one. Geez, even people with the flu have sometimes had an accident.

Anyway, when I go out I prefer to go to places I’ve been before. Places that I know exactly where each washroom is located in case I have to make a mad dash for the rest room. I sometimes even think that I should purchase some disposable underwear for those really bad days when I have to go out, but my system is acting up so much I can’t be sure that I won’t have one of those rare accidents.

What an awful disease eh? The pain, lack of digestion, fevers and abscesses are bad enough, but then you add the embarrassment of possibly having an accident and it makes it that much worse. I hate this disease.