thepeaksandthevalleys.com

At this time last year, I couldn’t imagine running over a few miles a week and anything over 40 hours a week of work – completely out of the question. My body quickly reminded me as well that i’ve given it a good go, but it’s time to slow down. I took up other activities during this time like yoga and riding bikes, so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t able to move at all, but it felt pretty extreme. I don’t care that people have given me grief over it either, because we just don’t experience the same things, so there is no use in comparing.

This international awareness day holds a special place in my heart for the obvious reason of bringing awareness to IBD and autoimmune diseases in general, but also because a year ago I finally got the courage to share my story! Autoimmune diseases are particularly interesting, I heard them described pretty well today by Dr. Rob Buckman, whose work was featured on 99% Invisible’s episode called Breaking Bad News: Autoimmune diseases are “a group of diseases in which the body defense’s attack itself and which you become literally your own worst enemy But establishing a voice with the support of family and friends that later morphed into The Peaks & The Valleys has given me the confidence I needed to deal with Crohn’s and has now poured over into all other aspects of my life. I am still working on how to get involved with Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s Illinois Chapter & Team Challenge (if any of you are involved with CCF or Team Challenge, can you help me get a connection in there? !

What truly feels like overnight, my energy has come back, my mood has improved, I don’t feel the need to lay down every hour, my skin has started to perk up and so has my appetite. I don’t wince when I get up out of my chair at work because my hips and knees feel like bone is rubbing on bone. It feels amazing to just feel again – to feel hungry, eat a whole meal and satisfied without the fear of shooting stomach pains, to feel restless, to feel my legs carry me without burning, to smile and As quickly as it felt like I turned a corner to feeling healthy and great, I was slammed right back into feeling sick.

Only reason I mention this is that this can be a deal breaker for many people, but it really didn’t inconvenience us, they were still pretty quick and the food was really good! This could have been due to weather or could be custom, but I also noticed that every time someone would quote me a time, such as 1-2 hours of transit to snowmobiling, you double that and there’s the real time. Since we didn’t know what to expect and were having a good time, it didn’t matter. We got to the airport around 1p and, due to delays, didn’t take off until 4:30a the following day.