For those of you who are unfamiliar with Crohn's and Colitis, We encourage you to read about our Honorary Team Member, BUFFY MARON-GRAY. Buffy is the sister of Melanie Maron. Melanie works with both Katie & Angela at RBJ. Below is Buffy's story...

Crohn’s disease is an auto immune disease that affects your digestive system from where the food goes in to where it comes out. Not pretty I know. It affects you emotionally and spiritually, not to mention the toll it takes on those around you. Some parts of my story are serious, some are funny, I hope either way, you find something valuable.

My name is Buffy. I am 37 years old. I got married three years ago and have an 18 year old bonus son and two boys from my first marriage, 13 and 9. I was diagnosed with Crohns three months before my wedding in 2006.

Looking back over nearly 20 years, I can identify all of my symptoms and struggles, especially around the birth of my children, and during times of great stress. I had multiple bouts with kidney stones and my Gal Bladder removed years before I was diagnosed. I just figured I was broken! But the story really gets interesting in December of 2005. I started to have horrible bouts of diarrhea and lower abdominal pain. My boys and I were living with my parents and they would all find me crumpled on the floor in their kitchen crying because my guts felt like I had been eating glass. Everything made me sick sending me to the bathroom 15 times a day or more. I lost 30 pounds between December and February 2006. That part was awesome! I WAS getting married after all, and being a less chubby bride was very appealing, but my family began to worry. I didn’t have health insurance at the time so on the rare occasion I did go to a Doctor; I wouldn’t do tests, or have deep diagnostic conversations. I couldn’t afford it, and frankly I didn’t feel this particular doc was all that interested in doing anything other than giving me the latest drug, which again, I couldn’t afford.

As I got sicker, I decided I had to have health insurance and find a new Doctor. I did, and together we decided to try medication as a first step to get me well. That turned out to be a BIG MISTAKE! Dr. T is a blessing, if he hadn’t been proactive and really listened to me, I would be dead. I was sick instantly after taking the first dose. So we tried some different things and two weeks later, around Valentine’s Day I woke up in the middle of the night with this pain roaring through my lower right abdomen. NOT GOOD! I went to see Dr. T. who sent me for x-rays and didn’t like what he saw. He sent me immediately to a surgeon to discuss an emergency appendectomy. The surgeon didn’t like what he saw either and immediately admitted me to the hospital, saying it wasn’t my appendix, but didn’t know what it was. After every type of body scan, and with my insides lit up like a Christmas tree from all the contrast, it was determined that I had a fistula in my intestines that had to be removed. After surgery to remove a third of my small intestine, a biopsy definitively diagnosed Crohn’s disease.

The last 3 years have not been easy. I take up to 14 pills a day, I have had blockages, kidney stones, 4 significant flares, where my disease is active and sends me to the bathroom up to 30 times a day (a personal best!) I have been on prednisone off and on for 18 months in the last three years. I am like the Incredible Hulk on that med, minus the size change, super strength and green color. NOT NICE! We have an amazing amount of financial debt because my condition was deemed “pre existing” and my surgery wasn’t covered, all of this while trying to raise a family, build a solid marriage, work, and have a life. It isn’t just me that has to deal with this, it’s everyone I love.

In February, My GI doc determined that my current treatments weren’t working and I started a new drug called Remicade. Thank you Lord that I have health insurance, each infusion is about ten grand! This year alone I will have $80,000 coursing through my veins just for this medication! With doctor’s appointments, other medication, emergency room visits and all of the stuff that comes with this disease, my dysfunctional digestive system alone is worth $150,000 in 2009!

I have to have a sense of humor about this. I deal with some aspect of Crohn’s disease EVERY DAY! I have had accidents at work and at home. I have abandoned my children in the frozen foods section at the grocery store more times that I care to think about. I don’t buy cheap toilet paper because I have hemorrhoids. I talk about poop A LOT and I can tell jokes like “I have two butt holes and neither of them is my husband” because I recently had an anal fistula. My primary care doc has had his finger in my hiney one day, and watched me sing at church the next day, if you can’t find humor in that, you’ll die of embarrassment. My family is so sick of hearing “I’m tired” but there are days I can’t drag my hind end up our stairs no matter how much the dog licks my face with encouragement. If I get cold, my joints ache with such magnitude that I walk like an 80 year old woman in a sweater and a blanket, and I have enough padding that I should be warm all the time!

Now somebody wants to run a race to raise awareness for this disease in my name. And for the first time since I found out, I am in tears over the magnitude of how much my life and the lives of my loved ones has been affected by being sick. A million people in the US have some form of Irritable Bowel Disease. Researchers don’t know the cause of Crohn’s, but there is no cure. Most people are diagnosed between 18 and 35 most are initially diagnosed incorrectly. Based on my experience all of those one million people wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I am blessed to have a supportive, loving and understanding husband who has on more than one occasion, turned the other way so I am not completely embarrassed, children who don’t mind chatting about their day in the bathroom and parents who have cleaned up my accidents and family and friends that laugh at my jokes! Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I am lucky that I don’t look sick so my story may surprise a lot of people.

If you are moved to support Christina, Angela, and Katie in their desire to support the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, thank you. You contribution will support research to find a cure for this disease, help folks who are sick pay for their expensive medications, and help create support programs for patients with Crohn’s disease. Not everyone has people in their lives to help and support them. Please consider it a personal gift to me if you reach out and give to this cause. My deepest appreciation to all of you for your support, and I mean deep, from the bottom of my dysfunctional intestines!