If you saw me on the street and didn't know me, I wouldn't stand out. I'm of average height, average build, brown hair, etc. I look like what I am--a thirtysomething professional woman. I dress according to my local uniform. If you saw me in my natural habitat, there's nothing that would cause you to remember me. From the outside, I look completely normal.
What you don't see when you pass me in the crowd is that to stay anonymously normal, I take a crapload of pills. Every.Single.Day. This is a picture of the prescription medicines I take so that I can live a "normal" life:
Every day I take all these pills. They are what keep me in remission. If my UC is flaring up, add 4 or 5 prednisone tablets, plus a few iron pills because I'm probably anemic as well. And, this medicine regime is actually not all that bad. I've got one friend who has to keep herself on a strict diet to stay healthy and another friend who gives herself an injection of Humira every other week. Plus there are plenty of patients who need Remicade infusions every few weeks.
This, my friends, is why I run and why I'm begging for donations to end Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis. Call me selfish, but I don't like taking all these pills and I want a cure that doesn't involve the total removal of my colon. All those blue pills you see above didn't exist when my dad was first diagnosed and they represent a huge improvement in IBD treatment. Without those pills, I wouldn't be able to hide in the crowd. I wouldn't know what remission feels like and I certainly wouldn't be able to run a few blocks, much less a half-marathon. Those blue pills wouldn't have been possible without an earlier generation's generous donations to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation to fund research. But as you can see, those are a lot of pills.
Let's find a cure.
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