Face the sunshine

The photo on the right was taken just before my one year stomaversary (anniversary of having a stoma) and the one on the left was taken by a friend about a year before. I know how long it can take for the side effects of steroids to wear off and I have a full on 'moon-face' in the left photo as I was still taking lots of steroids and had been on them for a long time. Although horrified at first when the photo on the left popped up on a Facebook timeline from a 'year ago today' I was actually pleased to see it as I felt in comparison to recent photos, I am looking a lot better/healthier. I feel that my hair is a lot thicker, healthier and is able to grow and I just generally feel better in myself. It's great to have photographic evidence to show me how much the steroids had affected me and to see how far I have come in a year as I think sometimes it's easy to forget just how poorly we have been/how much we can go through with Crohns or Ulcerative Colitis. A...

I recently celebrated my '1 year stomaversary' of my second permanent stoma and got a bit emotional thinking of all the things I am now able to do thanks to modern medicine and the surgical techniques that formed my stoma. Since having my stoma I've been paddleboarding, taken part in an aquathlon, started jogging and completed my first 10K. None of these are particularly ground-breaking for a lot of people but I find that I need to do more than a 'normal' person to stay fit and to get back to my pre-surgery weight/body I was happy with. I know that part of this is age but also that I am not absorbing all the goodness from foods that a 'normal' person with a functioning colon would be. The one year has flown by and I'm grateful on a daily basis that my stoma is enabling me to live an active lifestyle.