Also…I live in Michigan, where the job market is coming back but still isn’t particularly strong. Before I graduated you could often find me talking to my co-workers at school having mini mental breakdowns about how I’d pay bills and how I’d never find a job. A week before I graduated I was approached by [...]

Tags: advocacy, awareness, careers, colitis, confidence, crohns, employment, happiness, jobs, Jpouch, powerful women., support, UC, Ulcerative colitis.

I wanted to talk to you guys about employment and how to tackle the medical history exposure part of it. I am only going to speak of my experience, as that is what I know best. More than likely, I’ll be breaking this post into two parts because if I don’t, I know you guys [...]

Tags: advocacy, awareness, career, colitis, confidence, crohns, employment, jobs, Jpouch, support, tears, Ulcerative colitis., working out

As usual, I’m about 3 weeks late to this party. I tend to avoid controversy while its happening, and then right when you think its over and everyone has forgotten…BAM. Here I am all, “I have an opinion and I’m sure its going to piss you off”. You all know what I’m talking about, right? [...]

Tags: advocacy, awareness, CCFA, colitis, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, crohns, Escape the Stall, IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, j-poucher, Jpouch, ostomies, proud, support, surgery, Ulcerative colitis.

Traveling with a J-Pouch can be nerve-racking and a tad more difficult than it is for healthy-coloned folks, but from my personal experience, J-Pouch travel is infinitely easier and more pleasurable than traveling with active ulcerative colitis. I would compare traveling with UC to getting a colonoscopy with absolutely no pain medication or anesthetics while traveling [...]

Tags: advocacy, confidence, IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, j-poucher, Jpouch, Justin Berkman, sickness, surgery, toilet paper, travel, traveling

Today is World Ostomy Day, and it has brought up some interesting emotions and realizations for me. I want to share some things with you. Intimate thoughts, and unflattering pictures. That picture is me before my first surgery. Very sick. Very overweight from steroids. Very scared. Very VERY horrified I’d have to have an ostomy. VERY embarrassed [...]

Tags: advocacy, Camp Oasis, colitis, confidence, disease, doctors, exercise, friends, happiness, hope, IBD, ileostomy, j-pouch, MS, multiple sclerosis, Oasis, ostomies, ostomy, poop, proud, sickness, suicide, surgery, tears, UC, Ulcerative colitis., working out