I have celebrated World IBD Day, which falls annually on May the 19th, for the last seven years. Even just figuring that out seems crazy. I have been raising awareness of Inflammatory Bowel Disease since March 2014. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, one of the main forms of IBD, in 2007. It really doesn’t feel that long ago.

It took me seven years to talk openly about it. Partly because I didn’t really want to talk about what happened in the bathroom, or pooping into a bag, but also partly because I was always so hopeful that the next treatment, or the next surgery, would be the end of it. Then I could just get back to the life I had before.

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