I'm not sure if this is appropriate, so if this post gets deleted I completely understand and apologize for breaking any rules.
My beautiful friend Caitlin recently had a colectomy and ileostomy surgery after suffering for years from ulcerative colitis. After numerous treatments and three years of no remission, she choose surgery, and although it has only been a few weeks, she says this was the best decision of her life. She will have to wait at least a year before they can go back in and create the j-poch, and then she'll have another surgery to reattach, but she's in no rush.
I am doing a fundraiser to help raise money for her bills and so she can afford to return to school once she has recovered. She had become so weak, anemic, and malnourished that she was forced to stop working and was bedridden.
She needs help as she gets her life back, and so I figured I would turn to a community that knows what she is going through. Unless you have watched someone struggle with one of these diseases, it's hard to relate and imagine what they are going through.
Caitlin herself is more than happy to talk with anyone struggling with coming to terms with this surgery, so if you would like her contact information, I will ask her permission of course, and add it to this post.
Support the Stoma
That is the link to the fundraiser, and it has a little blurb with more information on her story. It is linked to her Facebook page if you would like to request her and keep up with her story as she has started posting about the stoma to share her journey to a better life with her friends.
If you donate or share or just simply tolerate this post so that it can reach others, I appreciate it more than you know. She has lost her early twenties to this disease and more than deserves some help to get back on her feet as well as simply opening people's eyes to diseases that most people scratch their heads about.
<3
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