Hi,
I'm 24 and was first diagnosed 11 years ago when I was 13 (yay for Prednisone freshman year of high school, made me totally manic...). I was a competitive swimmer...and I managed to push through and swim all the way through college. Now I'm in law school.
I think I've been fairly healthy until the last year and a half or so. I've probably had four seperate flares during that time, I've been hospitalized three times, gotten two blood transfusions, had fistula the whole time and been switched onto Remicaide. Yet, during that time I've also done a six-week backpacking trip to Europe (don't ask me how...I was in the hospital within two weeks of my return) and trudged trough my first year of law school. But now the Remicaide seems to be working and for the first time in a while I feel like I may be going into remission. No surgeries (except a seton placement for the fistula).
Right now my biggest challenges are just reclaiming the things that I've lost in the last year and a half. One thing is I want to get back into SHAPE...I haven't been able to exercise at all. I think the best way will be to set myself a goal, so I'm thinking about training for a 10K or a half-marathon or something (there is a CCFA half-marathon team thing I might do). Other then that, I want to get back that feeling I had before that remission was the norm and flare was the exception. I miss that.
Okay...that's really it. I don't have most of the horror stories that people here have...but I have run the gamut on almost all the symptoms I read about on this board. So hopefully I can give some thoughts on how to get through it.
I'm 24 and was first diagnosed 11 years ago when I was 13 (yay for Prednisone freshman year of high school, made me totally manic...). I was a competitive swimmer...and I managed to push through and swim all the way through college. Now I'm in law school.
I think I've been fairly healthy until the last year and a half or so. I've probably had four seperate flares during that time, I've been hospitalized three times, gotten two blood transfusions, had fistula the whole time and been switched onto Remicaide. Yet, during that time I've also done a six-week backpacking trip to Europe (don't ask me how...I was in the hospital within two weeks of my return) and trudged trough my first year of law school. But now the Remicaide seems to be working and for the first time in a while I feel like I may be going into remission. No surgeries (except a seton placement for the fistula).
Right now my biggest challenges are just reclaiming the things that I've lost in the last year and a half. One thing is I want to get back into SHAPE...I haven't been able to exercise at all. I think the best way will be to set myself a goal, so I'm thinking about training for a 10K or a half-marathon or something (there is a CCFA half-marathon team thing I might do). Other then that, I want to get back that feeling I had before that remission was the norm and flare was the exception. I miss that.
Okay...that's really it. I don't have most of the horror stories that people here have...but I have run the gamut on almost all the symptoms I read about on this board. So hopefully I can give some thoughts on how to get through it.
