The past few weeks have held major turnaround for me. Today is officially 2 months since my surgery and looking back I cannot believe that much time has past. The past 8 weeks I have been through hell and back but now I am able to see the big picture, which is the light at the end of the tunnel. Not to sound corny, but I am basking in that light. In the past week and a half a switch just flipped and not only do I feel AMAZING, but I feel worlds stronger than I have ever been. I have sure had my share of ups and downs and there were many days when I just wanted to crawl under the covers and give up, but all my perseverance has finally paid off and I couldn't be more grateful, I am truly blessed. The problem is no longer not having energy to do things, it's having too much energy and trying to do too much. At my last GI appointment, my doctor told me he waited to see me back in 6 months. SIX MONTHS. I am used to living in my doctors office, I know everyones name by heart. The fact that I now dont have to go back for half a year is crazy to me, although I am not complaining. I still have to have follow up appointments with the surgeon (who is totally gorgeous by the way!) and with the derm for the shingles (which are gone but still give me some pain). 

So, instead of filling my time with doctors appointments, I have found bigger and better things to do. Firstly, I started back to work. I use the word work lightly because I strongly believe that if you love what you do you wont have to work a day in your life. When you work with babies as I do, missing 2 1/2 months of work is worlds in baby time. When I left my buddy was hardly crawling and now he is a maniac running all over the place. I dont know if I would have had the energy to keep up with him before. 

We have also gotten to spend some time exploring the city, seeing people we haven’t seen in years, and doing things weve wanted to do but just couldn’t. One of the hardest things for me post proctocolectomy was traveling, and in a city like New York that made things very difficult. When getting places takes 45 minutes on a train and you have a condition like crohns, your basically screwed. Because of this we missed out on so many opportunities to do things that we would have liked to do. I for the first time feel like I am in control of my disease instead of it being in control of me. If I want to do something, damn it, im going to do it. No more apps that locate bathrooms or planning everything around meal times (when I had the most issues). I cannot fathom how anyone would be embarrassed of having an ostomy or a bag. It gave me my life back and I am so happy about it I could just shout it at the top of my lungs to everyone I know. I have to restrain myself from telling everyone I meet “Hi I’m Celina, isn’t my ileostomy bag cute?!” However, when I think of people who are embarrassed and hide it, it brings me back down to earth about how although at this point in my life I am in a good place medically, I wasn’t always, and I wont always be. We need a cure. As great as I feel in this moment, Im not an idiot, and I know, chances are, my disease will come back and find me further down the road. With my surgery, after 5 years, 30% of people will develop crohn’s in the small intestine. Each year the number goes up. 80% of crohns patients who have had surgery will require another one. I have had 2 and im fairly confident I will need another one. But that’s ok. It gives me motivation everyday to live my life to the absolute fullest while I still can, and if the disease flares up again, ill be ready and face it head on.

Something River and I both share a love for is Cleveland, and with that, Cleveland sports. We can almost always be found wearing some type of CLE clothing and watching a game. Since Ive started feeling better we have discovered the Browns Backers, which is a group of Cleveland fans living in the city who get together at a bar to watch the games. Basically a little piece of Cleveland heaven right here in New York. I think they have BB in every state and in several different countries, its awesome. Not only do we get to watch the Browns play, but its really nice running into friends we haven’t seen in years. Not to mention, I CAN FINALLY EAT CHICKEN WINGS without pain. Hallelujah. We also went to watch The King’s return to Cleveland. Although we didn’t get the W we wanted, seeing Lebron in a Cavs uniform again gave and continues to give me goosebumps. If your not from Cleveland, you wont get it, but to us, its deep.

Of course, everything cant always go my way. With the many ups ive experienced in the past month, come some downs. For starters my macbook crashed…the day after I deleted all my pictures off of my phone. Losing those memories tears at my heartstrings, but it teaches me to back it up next time. For once, River has been having some health issues. Nothing longterm serious, but stressful and painful none the less. He started complaining of some throat pain last week. At first we thought it was muscular, but over the days we noticed a lump was starting to form and effect his breathing. Long story short we ended up in the ER on Halloween and to both of our shock, they decided to admit him because they couldn’t quite figure out what it was and wanted to give him oral anibiotics. They probably wouldn’t have admitted him if it was anywhere else but his throat, but they wanted to be sure it didn’t cause any major breathing problems. So we spent the weekend in the hospital. He was only there for 48 hours, but I was EXHAUSTED trying to balance work, the dogs, the house, and of course being at the hospital every second I could be. I have no clue how river managed it for months. My hero.

The holidays are coming up, my favorite time of year. I cant wait to celebrate them HEALTHY and surrounded by the people I love. Life is amazing, enjoy every minute of it, try new things, pay it forward, and tell those important to you that you love them every day.