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In 2008, at the age of 24, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that triggers my immune system to attack my colon. Those attacks cause bloody diarrhea, rectal bleeding, cramps, and underwear-soiling urgency. In the four years since my diagnosis I’ve been on a host of drugs with fancy pharmaceutical company-created names like Asacol, Imuran, and Remicade. In between each of those drugs, I’ve needed multiple rounds of prednisone, a not so fancily named steroid. I’ve tried naturopathic remedies and homeopathic medicine. I’ve also tried diet changes, eliminating at one point or another, and in no specific order, spicy foods, dairy products, red meat, eggs, gluten, wheat, nuts, dried fruits, alcohol, caffeine, and carbonated beverages. Pills haven’t worked. Suppositories haven’t worked. Intravenous drugs haven’t worked. Herbs and magic water haven’t worked. Pleasure-free diets haven’t worked. I just shit and bleed and shit and cramp and bleed and shit and shit some more.
So, on to surgery. Surgery to remove my colon. Surgery that I tried and tried to avoid.