Be aware

I don't see myself as a crusader for any particular cause, nor do I want to be a poster boy for anything but I feel I must spend some time on this.
June 18-22 is Australian Crohns & Colitis Awareness Week. If you click the link it will explain better than I will here exactly what Inflammatory Bowel Disease is.
What I will explain here is my experience of living with IBD, a condition that is not life-threatening a large majority of the time but one that is very much lifestyle threatening.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease after a short, sharp period of illness that followed some on and off unexplained ailments. They were soon very much explained.
The night before some test results I became intensely afraid of cancer and had to have my doctor say the words `you don't have cancer' to be satisfied.
While that was a relief, what he told me I had was hard to understand. I'd heard of it vaguely, by name, as most people have but didn't really know what it would mean. Initially everything seemed surreal and I had an insense feeling of unease.
How has it affected me?
For me the effects have been more psychological than physical (touch wood). When the condition has been active, which has happened twice since diagnosis, the physical effects included weight loss (I lost about 9-10kg both times), appetite loss, severe tiredness and different bathroom habits. Some people get pretty bad pain, fortunately I don't at this stage. The biggest effect has come in lifestyle. While generally I can and do still do pretty much everything I did before disgnosis I tend to have to be more wary of certain things.
Why should awareness be raised?
Unlike some conditions, it isn't obvious that someone has to deal with conditions like this. By that I mean unless you are physically sick you don't look sick. But that doesn't mean it isn't having an effect. The nature of IBD is that it can come and go. There can be years between `flares', but also some people never have perios of remissions. It's been six months since I got over the physical side of my last `flare' of the disease and only now am I feeling good. In the time between now and then I have worked (with a couple of breaks) but haven't always been on my game.
What can you do?
I have found that some people go out of their way to understand what is going on in an effort to accommodate you if need be. Those people are priceless. Simple understanding and support are the most important things anyone can offer.
Others just say `I've heard of it but don't know much about it'. If you're in that latter category I urge you to spent a few minutes learning. I sincerely hope you don't have to deal with this issue but it can affect anyone and you probably know someone who is.
An American guy called Josh Golder has made a film True Guts which features people living with IBD. I am yet to see it but hope to.

So there's something of what I experience. To this point I consider myself one of the fortunate ones in that while it has been and is a difficult thing to manage it is well within the manageable range, according to the doc, and therefore I haven't had to take any `serious' drugs. I hope it stays that way.