Living with Crohn’s Disease: Personal Journey and Recovery from a Proctocolectomy

2023-08-21 05:00:08

It has been more than ten years since the crohn’s disease turned his life upside down. At 29, Maggie Tretton chose to put an end to her ailments by undergoing a proctocolectomy during her twenties. In January 2019, she underwent a rectal surgery and colon.

Today, despite living without it, she says she feels both perfectly normal and very different. In a video YouTubeshe recently returned to her experience, detailing her daily life to nearly 100,000 subscribers.

Crohn’s disease, ten years of evil

« In my case, as far as how I look and feel, it’s pretty normal she revealed online. At the age of 25, however, Crohn’s disease had ravaged Maggie’s intestinal tract causing her chronic pain. Painful inflammation of the digestive tract, Crohn’s disease can cause diarrhea, malnutrition, fatigue and weight loss. A disease affecting half a million Americans.

A necessary operation

Faced with his case described as extreme, sometimes doctors suggest a proctocolectomy during which the colon and rectum are removed before creating a new way of eliminating waste. When a surgeon offered to undergo it, Maggie thought ” Damn it, let’s get that baby out! “. Seriously, this procedure involved surgeons closing her anus like a “ cordon “. Maggie had few doubts regarding the necessity of such an operation, the illness having caused her a ” fistula tract “. Behind that term, Maggie had developed a pathway from her rectum to her tailbone. Channel also closed during surgery.

A long recovery

To fully recover, it took him a year. ” It’s a really hard place to heal” she confided. But four years following the operation, Maggie’s pain has completely disappeared » and the young woman feels « normale “. For the disposal of waste, an ostomy bag, emptied several times a day, was placed on him. ” Doesn’t feel as strange to me as I expected before the surgery she revealed. ” Very grateful for this operation, Maggie has no regrets and would have even liked to have had it earlier. Now, she takes advantage of her online presence to raise awareness of the disease and educate the widest possible audience regarding this condition, just like the possibility of an operation.

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