February 18th, 2020: the day I walked out of the hospital after being diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis and the day that changed my life. Super cliche, I know, so continue reading at your own risk (lol)…
A Year Ago, Today
There aren’t too many significant dates that I get all sentimental & mushy over. But for some reason, the day that I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis is one of them.
Maybe that’s because I believe that February 18 changed me. For better or worse, my outlook on life was flipped upside-down seeing it through the lens of a chronic disease. This moment was the first time I’ve ever felt completely helpless. When everything seemed so out-of-control and unpredictable and painful. However, this day also taught me what unconditional love, compassion, true friendship, and self-acceptance looks like.
Although it’s super cliche and almost goes without saying, I wouldn’t go back and change what happened on February 18, 2020 for anything.
Feb. 18- Feb 28, 2020
Before I knew how to take care of my “new self” in the first 10 days after the UC diagnosis, I remember feeling so discouraged on the days when the plethora of different medications I was put on just didn’t seem to kick in. My mom had to come live with me at my college apartment since I simply just couldn’t do anything for myself on those days.
Quite honestly, these 10 days were the most disheartening. I had an answer but no solution. Great. One question just kept eating away at me: why are these medications working for everybody else, but not me?
- 2/18/2020: The day I got out of the hospital, Day 1 of healing from UC
Thank goodness my mom was still living with me during these 10 days and just as determined to find something that offered any kind of relief from the severe symptoms I still had. She stumbled across the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and dove into helping me research more about it and cook meals that followed its guidelines.
Brief context here: I spent the past 6 years recovering from an eating disorder so the word “diet” and the thought of “going on a diet” brought up a lot of weird emotions for me- so I was initially very opposed to this idea. However, recovering from anorexia nervosa gave me an extreme passion for nutrition and using food as medicine. Sooo I was willing to give the SCD a shot.
The first day we (“we” meaning my mom cooking, me laying immobile in bed from pain) followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet 100% to a T was February 28, 2020. If you’ve been following me or know me in real life, it should be no surprise that Feb. 28 was the birthday of my SCD banana pancake recipe… which I STILL eat almost every single day a whole year later! …Hence the drastic improvement in pancake flipping & stacking seen in the photos lol.
- 2/29/20: One of the first banana pancake breakfasts
- 1/3/21: Banana Pancake Glowup
I also took my first dose of Humira, the immune-suppressing treatment my GI doctor prescribed.
To sum it up, these 10 days were full of confusion, prayers, devotions, weakness, and help. And I’m thrilled to say that everything to follow is a beautiful down-hill coast, for the most part.
Feb. 28- June:
This was an incredibly healing time for me. Just as I was getting out of a series of hospital stays, COVID hit. And the world felt like it completely paused for a few weeks. Since IBD “flares” are often triggered by stress for me, adopting a slower-paced lifestyle was KEY at the time.
I was able to completely recover, get my strength back, and even run the Pittsburgh half marathon that I signed up for (virtually, of course)!
- 5/2/2020: Virtual Half Marathon
Between taking a Humira injection every other week and following the SCD still, I was able to put my ulcerative colitis in a complete remission during this time. I even started adding a couple non-SCD foods back into my diet!
I also got VERY into recipe development during this time. Creating recipes has always been fun for me- its actually why I went to study Food Science in college. But UC made it a challenge.
Challenges = Game
Game = Fun
My idea of fun during quarantine most definitely morphed into trying to see how closely I could replicate all of my old favorite foods into SCD-compliant clones. Followed by writing them down and starting this little blog of mine!
Without an IBD diagnosis to light up this passion, I honestly don’t think I would’ve ever taken the leap to invest time and energy into creating it.
- 4/10/2020: The day I laughed my baby website (literally only had 1 recipe posted LOL)
Next up: my 21st birthday! …Which was amazing, despite the world still being in a lockdown. Alcohol is very much so a “grey area” in the SCD. But we happened to be on a lake vacation with my family that week so I took it veryyy easy to find out what my body could handle.
A couple months later, I can say that I feel amazing drinking red wine and vodka sodas. But I steer clear of most other drinks out of caution… Trust me, I stick out like a sore thumb in a college town but you gotta do what you gotta do right?
- 6/18/20: My 21st Birthday
June- Now
Let’s set the scene: I’m still trying to re-learn how to trust myself again after the horrible February flare. I was also still trying to self-acceptance- the version of myself in the mirror seemed like a shell of who I really was some days.
I had to accept that my runs weren’t as fast or long as they used to be. I was severely bloated by dinner almost every single day. Baggy clothes quickly became a staple. In my mind I still wasn’t 100%. It’s almost as if I still hadn’t completely accepted that a chronic disease will forever be a factor in my life- that what I’m able to bring to the table on a given day will always be heavily influenced by it.
Every “off” or “low energy” day always used to come with a lot of guilt for me. I felt like I had nothing to offer on these days.
But support system of family and close friends was so incredible. Because these “off” days were still somewhat frequent, I wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship at all. I’ve never been that girl to need a boyfriend to show me what unhindered acceptance looks like.
Early July had different plans… I like to refer to this point of my UC story as the “Reckless Healing Phase”:
Our first 2 dates were runs, but our true first date was a winery. And the rest is history. While I would’ve kept healing at home with my family, having him to literally push me out of the house, put real jeans on again, meet new people, and try new things accelerated the self-acceptance piece that I struggled so much with earlier. Watching the way he listened and accepted wherever I was that day almost taught me how I should listen and accept myself- as cheesy as that sounds.
He was the one that moved me from my self-created “safe zone” and into the real world again. This was the point of the story where I would often even forget that I had an autoimmune disease in the first place! With him, I feel like a normal 21-year-old girl instead of a senior citizen trapped in my house all day in slippers.
Since being diagnosed with UC, I feel like the relationships with people in my life mean 100 times more to me than they used to. It’s easy to stick by someone at their best, but for someone to be there through the worst and still love me really shows their heart.
Speaking of “the worst”, I still had my fair share of flares in this phase. The “flares” I get now are on a much smaller scale in comparison to the major flare I had in February that landed me in the hospital. These mini flares usually only include severe bloating, lack of appetite, stomach pain, and fatigue… all of which I would take any day in place of running to the bathroom multiple times per hour. They also typically last for one or two days- besides a week-long flare I had recently in December.
I’ve found that my UC “flares” are usually caused by:
- trying to push my diet too far off the SCD guidelines
- stress
- running too much (another form of stress I suppose).
While these triggers are usually different from person-to-person, I think these are fairly common ones.
- 10/9/20: My usual mini flare day, lots of pain, lots of bloat. Ugh.
- 10/10/20: I usually wake up feeling totally normal the next day
On to the Next!
On to the next year, that is.
On to another year of learning. Another year pushing myself to do new things. Another year of growth. Another year of uncovering all of the blessings that are put in disguise. Another year of fun recipes and healing.
This next year is going to be transformative. Between finishing the hardest semester I’ve ever had, college graduation in May, and starting grad school, a lot of change is on the horizon. I’m already trying to plan out where my “flare days” fit into this crazy lifestyle. Or when the stress of it all will attack.
I guess that’s the thing with ulcerative colitis (or any autoimmune/chronic disease): you simply can’t plan for it.
As a type-A, soon-to-graduate girl in her 20’s with grad school coming up, not planning every minute detail is driving me crazy. Patience, acceptance, and flexibility aren’t exactly my strongest areas, but I’m expecting that this year will force me to work on those heavily.
And I can’t wait.
xoxo – hannah
