Open letter to my Mom

An open letter to my mom. 

Crohns runs in her family and I know it tears her up that I have had to deal with the blessing and curse of having it. For some back story, I had just purchased a house and within a week of purchasing, my fiance got a call to go work for his dream job. That dream job happens to be in a different state than the one we had just purchased our partially remodeled home in. Don't worry I will be posting some entertaining bits about that too, but for now I share this. 

I am thankful…..

With all the craziness and stress of the house, the move and the job, I created a thankful board. It’s a white board and at the end of each day I write a few things I am thankful for on sticky notes and put them on the board. It helps me remember all the great things in life in the midst of the insanity. On my first bike ride in weeks, I was about 13 miles in when I realized something, I am thankful that I have crohns. 

Please do not ever blame yourself or feel bad that I have been blessed with having crohns; and no that is not a sarcastic statement. Now let me explain.

I am an amazing athlete. I might not be in the Olympics or winning crazy medals, but I am an amazing athlete because I have to be. Working out keeps my stress levels low and purges the body of toxins. The crohns forces me to keep active or my stress levels get too high and I get sick. It keeps me in check and keeps me moving forward. It keeps me motivated without hindering my performance. There are very very few diseases out there that allow that to happen.

I don’t have to deal with peer pressure to eat junk food or drink. We all always want to eat the cake, donuts, treats, beer, what have you and I simply cannot. I don’t have to deal with the “oh she is one of those girls who won’t have treats because she doesn't want to get fat”. I have a solid excuse and no one gives me any crap about it. My body gave me a get out of jail free card to eat the way everyone should eat. I eat clean. I stay healthy. Just because other people can digest fast food doesn't mean they should. Chicken nuggets are delicious and can be hard to resist. My body has a built in resistance. Thankfully I do have cheats that I can still enjoy. Gluten free pizza and cookies are available, but not quite as accessible as everything else so then they get to truly be a treat.

Crohns has made me so much more compassionate to those who are suffering and fighting their own battles. Every single person in this world is fighting some battle, cancer, depression, obesity, the list goes on. The crohns has given me a small window into some of these battles without destroying my spirit.

Crohns can be an awful and debilitating disease, but only if I let it be. It has taught me the delicate balance of life that must exist to be healthy. The balance of stress, sleep, food, exercise and relaxation is really important and my body has an internal measure to let me know when one of those is out of whack. Who wouldn't want something like that?

You gave me the genes to be an athlete. You taught me the self-control to only take what I need. You taught me to treat others the way I wanted to be treated and to be compassionate. You taught me to rise above every obstacle life throws at me and find the best in it. Don’t ever feel sad or guilty that I have crohns, feel thankful for all the amazing things you have taught me. Feel thankful that I have a disease that pushes me to be a better person without holding me back in anyway. Thank God for giving me crohns so that I could learn all that I have from having it and then learn to rise above it.

Yesterday was the first time I was honestly thankful for having the experience of having crohns and I needed you to know too. 

Option A. Find a bathroom Option B. Shit my pants

This is a little story for my fellow crohnies. As some of you may know I have crohns disease. You can Google it, but pretty much if we were playing Oregon Trail, I would be the one dying of dysentery first. You get the idea. If you don’t know what Oregon Trail is, then you had a deprived childhood.

It had been kind of a long day and I needed to get some exercise. I was going to go biking, but I have had a cold and sometimes I push it too hard on the bike, so I decided to run instead. I don’t really love running, so I was unconcerned that I would attempt to push it too hard. I mean let’s be serious here. Anyways, about 3 miles out I got that little feeling like “oh hey, I might need to hit up a bathroom sometime in the nearish future.” For normal people this is not generally an issue. For a person with crohns this is a more time sensitive concern. 

I hit my turn around point and was feeling pretty good. The stomach was a little rumbly, but I was confident I would make it the 3 miles back to my house. After about a half mile I started to view bushes and hedges as possible shitting locations. I quickly realized that the remainder of this run was probably not going to happen without some sort of uncomfortable situation. I was fairly certain there was a park at the next path, road intersection and started to pray that there may be bathroom facilities there. That was still a half mile away though and I was seriously questioning that I could make it that far. I continued to jog until the park was in view and there did appear to be a bathroom facility of sorts. It was less than a quarter mile away, but at that point I had gone into self talk, deep breathing mode. One step at a time. You can do this. It’s not that far. You are NOT going to shit your pants right here!

I finally made it there. As I reached for the door, panic swept over me and for a split second I freaked out. What if the door is locked?  Closed after six? Some sick joke the universe was about to play on me to kill all my hopes and dreams of simply using a toilet instead of a bush or my shorts. The panic was also brought on by the fact that I had about 3 seconds before all hell would break loose in front of families playing baseball. To say I was relieved when the door was indeed unlocked would be a vast understatement.

I had made it! Life was good! Possible pants shitting situation had been averted. Though this all took place in maybe a 10 minute time lapse, I promise you it felt like an hour. So next time you are out running or biking and your feeling kind of tired or unmotivated, just be happy you don't also feel the need to shit your pants.