My First Post!

Finally, I have begun writing a blog. I have thought about it for awhile, and actually started this page late last year... but it wasn't until today that I have finally decided that I am ready to write about my life and to share it openly with other people.

I have had Crohn's Disease for 12 years now, and in the process so much has happened to me as a person directly because of chronic illness, and also as part of the usual happenings in life. Along the past 12 years I have come to meet other people with Crohn's Disease, and it's sister condition, Ulcerative Colitis (UC). I have also gotten to know people with other chronic and incurable diseases, like rheumatoid athritis and SLE (Lupus). In all my many encounters I have been amazed at the strength and resilience I have seen in so many people, and to some extent I have found them surprisingly, even in myself.

This ability to carry on despite what life throws at one has become a minor obsession with me... I am now looking at how people cope with Crohn's and UC as part of my studies. I remain acutely aware that I am trying to live through a chronic and incurable disease myself.

Some days I cope, and other days I don't. Some days I am fine and functional and other days I am too exhausted to speak. Some days I laugh a lot, other days I weep a lot. I want to share this journey with anyone who will read about the minutiae of my existence, not only because I feel a compelling need to share the nitty-gritty details of my life with other people, but because deep down inside me I do believe that every meaningful experience each one of us has had and will have has the capacity to encourage someone else.

In that spirit I begin my blog today. I promise that it will not be too dark, that there will be lighter moments, and that I will try not to be overly self indulgent and that I shall endeavour to make the experience of sharing my life with you as interesting as possible. Oooh... sounds like a tall order. I can only try. :)

pav