Some may say that having Inflammatory Bowel Disease and deep love for food may seem a little complicated.
AND TRUST ME, I GET IT.
MY STORY
When I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and a whole array of food allergies and intolerances, I never thought I’d be able to have my favorite foods and do my favorite things again. Everything I thought I knew about my lifestyle and my body and my diet was flipped upside down, turned on its head, and flipped upside down again after my diagnosis.
– What was life going to look like now?
– What did this all mean?
– How was I going to give up pizza and pasta and ice cream?
– How am I supposed to figure out who I am, and how to be happy, when so many parts of my past self feel like they no longer exist?
These were the questions that kept me up at night and raced through my mind 24/7 after I was told “you have Crohn’s disease.”
And these were the questions I eventually sought out to answer, in order to not only find acceptance and the answers for myself, but to also help YOU discover those answers and navigate life with chronic illness and food intolerances.
My sophomore year of High School, in 2013, was when I knew I wasn’t myself anymore. It felt as if I had a never-ending stomach flu. My stomach, and my body, constantly hurt. I stopped going to lacrosse practices and started getting vials of blood drawn. I started spending hours in doctor’s offices instead of classrooms. I was put on homebound instruction because I was too sick to get out of bed let alone make it to school.
I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG...
For over 2 years, nobody knew what was wrong with me. One night, when the pain became more intense than it had ever been, I was taken to the emergency room and then hospitalized for 2 weeks.
It wasn’t until AFTER that long and tumultuous hospitalization that I was finally scheduled for a colonoscopy. When I woke up from the procedure, I heard the doctor say yet again, “There’s nothing wrong.”
Defeated didn’t even begin to describe it – because I KNEW something was wrong, and I needed to know what it was.
A few days later, I got a phone call that changed everything. My new doctor reported that a further biopsy of the colonoscopy revealed that my inclination was right all along; there was something more. He said it was Crohn’s disease, and described it in a way that fit every single one of my symptoms.
When I was first diagnosed, I went through an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. While it was a relief to finally have an answer, that answer meant my life was going to change. A lot. At the time, even though I knew deep down that it wasn’t true, I just felt like the only person in the world who had IBD.
It wasn’t until one day when I started scrolling through “gluten free recipes” and “Crohn’s disease” hashtags on Instagram that I realized there were other people out there who could understand and relate to what I was going through, because they were going through it, too.
I realized I had a story I needed to start sharing because there had to be someone, even if it was just one person, who could learn from my struggles in life and find the joy in food again from my recipes. I wanted to be the person I needed when I was younger.
So, I got to work in the kitchen and within the pages of my journal, finding ways to put a food allergy-friendly spin on my favorite foods and put my experiences into words.
And now, this is me - sharing my health journey, my heart, and my love for food - to help you navigate life, one gluten-free meal and one real talk at a time.
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