Drowning in confusion. That was the state of my existence for approximately two months, maybe longer.

I was not given information about what Crohn’s was, or how it would impact me, aside from it being “an inflammatory bowel disease characterized by inflammation throughout your digestive tract”. In an attempt to inform myself, I tread upon thin ice, fell through, and found myself drowning.

I read about everything that could go wrong.

I took existing statistics and mashed them together to create new, more terrifying, super-statistics.

I was afraid of doing things that the month prior I was doing with great joy. I had anxiety before this year, but because of the self administered drip-feed of medical propaganda, I was on the verge of agoraphobia. I was away from work for almost two months and had tremors at the thought of returning. 

My husband struggled, I’m sure- actually, hear it from him yourself.

Brendon, how was that experience for you?

There are a lot of layers to that struggle. First and foremost, I love my wife very much and was heartbroken to find out that something like this could affect her so severely, forever. I understood that there were ways to manage it so it wasn’t debilitating but even ‘managing’ it is more than what I would want for her. But there is more than that. We are not just individuals anymore, we are a couple, a family. I was upset for Austin the person, for all the reasons above. 

But I was upset for Austin the wife too for entirely different reasons. Austin, my wife, was scared to do the things we enjoyed doing together. Biking, exercising, running, etc. But I myself, (Brendon the husband man) still wanted to do those things. These opposing situations created friction that was difficult for us to deal with. In doing them I felt guilty because I knew the impact it had on my wife. In not doing them it made Austin feel guilty that her medical issues were limiting my enjoyment in life. Both of us developed an underlying resentment on top of the other stressors inherent in the issue. That resentment also developed a sense of guilt, and it was all cyclical and felt rather hopeless.

On top of that there was Austin, the family person, who’s same fear impacted the relationship she had with our children and the things she was willing to do with them. The emotional toll all of this was having translated to bad moods, poor communication and isolation behavior which is never well received by kids. Watching that as the other half of the monarchy that rules over our family was difficult and disheartening as well.

Financial impacts were hard on both of us too, but how can you value income over one’s health? You can’t without feeling like a monster. Yet at the same time very real threats to our livelihood rose out of the ashes of the old Austin the diagnosis had tried to lay to waste. As a caring husband you can’t really say anything, but you can’t hide the calls you have to make on a weekly basis to your mother for help, or trying to apply for other jobs to either supplement the income or replace the income you already have with something better. That too developed into some very guilt heavy resentment over those months.

Eventually you just have to tackle that fear though. You have to identify the value of what you’re doing to protect yourself from any and all risk against the value of living your life in a way you love. That’s how we broke the cycle without breaking each other. Because we realized that we were worth taking some risks, and we always had each other to see us through to the otherside. 

Thank you Brendon, I appreciate you sharing what that experience was like for you. I am incredibly grateful that I have you in my life and that you were there for me when I needed help resurfacing.

It wasn’t easy. We fought a lot. At the time, I believed that I had every right to live in fear, and I felt like he was telling me that I didn’t. I applied every grim statistic to myself because I had every right to, but the point that I kept missing was that I didn’t have any reason to. He was always trying to help me understand that distinction, and eventually I did.

Stress is a very large contributor to “flare-ups” , a sudden showing of more severe symptoms, in Crohn’s patients. In “educating” myself, I was causing myself so much unneeded stress that was actually perpetuating my symptoms and increasing the possibilities of certain frightening circumstances, such as cancer, becoming a reality in the future. I was making myself sick! In choosing to be afraid, I was choosing to abandon my family, and live a very sad, and most likely short, life. 

So I started thinking more positively, letting go of the things that I had no control over, and prioritizing the things that I love. I can’t control whether I get cancer in the future, but I can control how often I get to feel the satisfaction of kicking my husband’s ass at a bike race.

I’m still working on myself, and staying positive and productive is a constant battle, but I believe that it is worth it.

If you find that you have a diagnosis, are confused, and you are wanting to know more about it, I would recommend that you find resources that can help guide you and support you rather than attempting to go at it alone. At the very least, have a support system of friends and family on standby to help give you a more positive perspective on things.