One day, you think you’re invincible and the day after... everything falls apart! - Anonymous

 [Part 1] The darkness of depression

Let me tell you my story. Maybe it looks like yours, maybe not. Some points of my story might seem familiar to you and make you realise that you’re not alone in your situation. There is no embarrassment to have an ostomy and, above all, we should celebrate life because we’re still here to share privileged moments with our friends and family.

Here is my story...

As far back as I can remember, every time I faced stressful situations, it was reflected in my body by diarrhea. Some blood filaments were regularly present in my stool but I never made a big deal about it because I thought it was normal.

In the fall of 2010, my symptoms got worse due to a heavy financial stress. Since the end of my bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2001, I had worked as a therapist. I promised myself that I would never suffer from depression, even if it came banging on my door one day, because I was professionally armed to recognize the symptoms and knew the techniques to alleviate or stop this problem. Big mistake! Depression is sneaky. It grabs your mind with subtle tricks and then controls your body. And it happens without you realising it. I told myself fatigue was normal because I was working a lot. I lost my appetite, I lost weight and I began to lose my taste for life. I was trained in this vicious circle. However, as life goes at a hundred thousand miles an hour, I didn’t have time to stop it; I had a business to run.

Various ups and downs happened in my life one after the other. Life spoke to me through these trials but I didn’t know how to listen to it. I had to close my business and it was a very difficult decision to accept, not to mention the heavy financial stress that followed.

After the holidays, as days passed, I became more and more withdrawn. In March 2011,  all my stools were liquid with blood in them and the vicious circle in which I was got more intense. April 15, 2011 was a fateful day for me. I called emergency services because I was really in bad shape. I then spent five weeks hospitalized. Five weeks of ordeal. Two weeks to undergo various blood tests, X-rays, ultrasounds, scans, biopsies and to meet all the specialists who each had their own diagnosis: an appendicitis attack, gastroenteritis, painful menstrual cramps, C difficile (meaning I had to go in isolation), ovarian cancer, Crohn's disease, etc., not to mention all the antibiotics and opiates injected into my body. For several days, I had two poles next to me, each with three or four bags hooked to it to inject me with all kinds of intravenous fluids. I finally learned that I had very severe inflammatory ulcerative colitis.

I can still remember how relieved I felt to finally know my diagnosis but what were my options then?

[To be continued in my 2nd article...]

Cindy

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