UCVlog: Maintaining Your Dignity for a Greater Purpose

There’s nothing pretty about IBD. From the moment you start experiencing symptoms there’s a certain sense of embarrassment that you experience. Nobody wants diarrhea. Nobody wants to poop 20 times a day or have blood coming out of their bottom, and rarely do people talk about it in casual conversation; but that’s where it starts. It doesn’t finish there. A series of even more undignified procedures and issues follow. It takes enormous ability to overcome the shame of feeling embarrassed over the lack of control you have over your body. Losing your colon and rectum, living with an ostomy and numerous other issues are challenges that a person with IBD can face. Acceptance of this being your reality is often very hard and can cause an individual to encounter a lot of mixed emotions. Recently I started experiencing blood passing out of my JPouch– despite that it is lying dormant, and I have an ostomy. Once again, I am having a pouchoscopy to see what is wrong. I honestly have to say that I am beginning to become very despondent over the fact that my body continues to be very uncooperative and I hate it. Undergoing a colonoscopy/pouchoscopy means submitting yourself to yet another procedure that will hopefully be helpful in the end. But it doesn’t dismiss the feelings you have going into a procedure like this. Or the fear that you have worrying about what the doctor will find. For myself, each and every time I undergo another procedure, I can’t help feeling that a little …