The book is very personal, humorous, easy to read and hope inspiration
(1) – Taken from my “introduction”
At the age of 16 my family moved us to Canberra, which is the capital of Australia where I met my husband Jason. We were married May 1988 and lived there for a
further 10 years before we relocated to Manchester England in December of 1998 where we still reside today.
I am a hairdresser by profession, but unable to work due to my illness and have been suffering with Crohn’s disease since October 1994. I wanted to write this book in order to help other Crohn’s sufferers and their families to better understand how this disease can affect people in their everyday lives. Of course everyone’s story and circumstances are different, however I hope that
my story will not only enlighten, but give hope to others who have just been diagnosed with this terrible disease. To date there are hundreds of thousands of people living around the world who suffer from Crohn’s.
This book is my way of bringing this disease to the publics attention in hope of better research and public understanding of what a Crohn’s sufferer goes through on an every day basis. Crohn’s is also known as an “embarrassing illness”. When I was first diagnosed I found it very difficult to find information apart from a medical perspective. I really needed to find information from people who were living with the disease to help me both understand and prepare for what might lie ahead for me and my family.
(2) – Taken from the chapter “Living with Crohn’s”
I do miss being in the workforce and the socialising that goes with it. The people you meet, the friends that you make and the feeling of achievement. As a hairdresser, I got all these things and more and to then not be able to do this anymore was upsetting for me. So now I have to rely on Jason for everything and feel in many ways I have lost my independence. This does play on my mind, however you have to make the best of every situation.
As work now became out of the question we thought about having a second child. The idea grew and Jason and I got quite excited about it. We did have some concerns on how my illness would affect me being pregnant. But we had Daniel and everything went OK, so did I have Crohn’s back then ? and does that mean I should be OK for a second child ? So we made an appointment with the doctor to see what he thought. The news was not good, he recommended not to have any more children for two main reasons;
1) With the amount of time I was spending in hospital was it fair to put another child through that and do I have the ability to look after two children with the amount of time I spend on the toilet.
2) As my Crohn’s was very active and little was known back then what complications and possible defects could occur during my pregnancy. The high levels of medication were also a huge concern as it may result in down syndrome.