My name is Joanne and i was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at fourteen, two days before i was to turn fifteen. From then i was tried on various medication to suppress my immune system to try and get my disease under control, this failed. At fifteen i had to get my large bowel removed and an ileostomy formed and of course my dad and i agreed we had to name it! So we gave my stoma his name ‘Whinnie the Pooh” so it had a positive joke towards it! (ha ha.) I was left what is called my rectal stump which is your rectum and it sewed inside at the part where your large bowel had originally joined it, in hope that in a few years time when the condition had settled that i could have a reversal (where you are reconnected from the small bowel to the top of the rectum.) By the age of 20, i had another operation to remove my rectal stump and sew me up (like a barbie!) due to my crohn’s affecting that part too.At this point i was in hospital for so long that i spent my 21st in there and I was close to death at one point too, and had to have several other operations done. Since then i have been OK but still suffering from time to time at home and recently just had a hospital admission as my the crohn’s has now spread to my pelvis and reproductive region. It has been decided that endure more surgery (hysterectomy) at some point to try and rectify this and make my symptoms less severe and also due to the damage that it has done.
Many others suffer not only the same as i have but in cases many have died. I also don’t want anyone else to have suffered like i have due to this horrible disease!
alannahjaynesblog.com 
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