"Have fun...and take pictures"

I am so many things to so many people. Wife, mommy, daughter, friend but I never thought I'd say charity case. I was diagnosed with UC in 2014 after three months of diarrhea, 20 pounds lost, and pure exhaustion. I went into remission pretty quickly after my diagnosis and then got pregnant with my second child--so goodbye Apriso, and prednisone... I don't need you and I also probably don't have UC.

We welcomed our daughter in 2015 and I was okay until she turned two months old... and I went from kind of healthy to deathly ill overnight. My whole digestive system shut down, I was pretty much unconscious in bed for over a week, I managed to lose all my baby weight and then some and I was in debilitating pain. My symptoms came back and it knocked me on my ass so prednisone, protonix, an antibiotic and pentasa were back! I eventually pulled out of the flare and spent my time loving life, working out, and focusing on anything but this stupid diagnosis which I still doubted I had.

I had maybe three flares from November 2015-October 2016 when we found out we were expecting our third! Goodbye pentasa, prednisone, and protonix. I definitely don't need you and I highly doubt I have UC.

Here I am, sitting here with my two month old... after just getting out of the hospital for one of the worst flares I've ever had. I managed to lose most of my baby weight, but prednisone doesn't work now. Lialda is next on the docket, I have a hiatal hernia and needed my esophagus stretched and I have an official Crohn's disease diagnosis. Hello prednisone, lialda, protonix, depression, loss of hope, etc. In the past week I have been on morphine for severe and debilitating pain, Percocet, and high doses of prednisone. I've had an ekg, two chest x rays, colonoscopy, and endoscopy. So much information has been regurgitated and I'm still trying to make sense of it all... but I think I'm more positive because I know and even though it super sucks, I know.

Here's to the long journey to health and happiness.