disability – Page 2 – Own Your Crohn's

acceptance, advocacy, awareness, Crohn's, living with IBD, Ostomy, patient rights, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis

Being Brown and Coming Out of the IBD Closet: The Chronic Illness Experience

August 7, 2018

***Originally published in Brown Girl Magazine on August 2nd, 2018: https://www.browngirlmagazine.com/2018/08/being-brown-coming-out-ibd-closet/*** Just as soon as he landed from India, a good friend called me, half laughing: “Tina, I know exactly what it feels like to be you now! I’ve had diarrhea for the last three weeks after eating at Elco Market in Mumbai! What do I do?” Another time when I was deathly ill, languishing from anemia, malnutrition and weight loss due to 20-30 bloody bowel movements a day, I remember the aunties ridiculing me. They would cackle behind my back as they proclaimed that I did this to myself. “She must have eaten lots of junk food and drank…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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The Hydration Challenge

July 22, 2018

We all know the feeling of waking up to our legs cramping, and our voices barely squeezing out a faint peep as an intense lightheadedness sets in. These symptoms, among others, are classic indications of dehydration. And with summer now in full swing, it is high time we talk about the importance of hydration. So, why does dehydration happen and why is it so important to stay hydrated as an IBD patient? According to the Mayo Clinic, “dehydration occurs when you use or lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn’t have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions.” Dehydration comes into…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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My Very Own Independence Day

July 4, 2018

Today, Independence Day 2018, marks 10 years since my colon and rectum were removed in emergency. I was 24 years old, 85 lbs, being fed by a PICC line and the hair on my head was greying from malnutrition. I was dying from IBD my doctors warned me as they urged me to have surgery. I remember that day so clearly when my then boyfriend/now husband, Anand, along with my close friend, Radhika, drove me into the city to have emergency surgery. And when my surgeon came up to me in the emergency room, he expressed that I may be too far-gone, that he was…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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The Waiting Game

June 30, 2018

Does nail-biting anxiety wash over you as you await results after a colonoscopy, MRI, or CT scan? Or restlessness while waiting for your latest round of biologics to start kicking in? Yeah, me too. I sit here today twiddling my thumbs endlessly as I await my ileoscopy and upper endoscopy biopsies from last week. This form of anxiety is all part of the waiting game. We patients live in constant agony while test results are pending, especially when a definitive diagnosis depends on those results. We worry as we take dose after dose of the latest round of immunosuppressants, earnestly hoping that this medication will be “it” — remission, finally. These feelings…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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MC Capital T Reppin’ from the BK Walk!

June 25, 2018

Thanks to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation for the opportunity to serve my fellow IBDers by sharing my experiences as well as introducing past and present Honored Heroes at the Brooklyn Take Steps Walk. Hats off to all of you for being brave enough to share how miserable these diseases are and how you are working to transcend #IBD. And a special thank you to all the doctors/surgeons and Lyfebulb for coming out to support us patients in our struggle! Even though I look well in the above photo, after the walk, I quickly deteriorated. I was dehydrated, had trouble breathing and had a partial bowel obstruction. Luckily, the Foundation…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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12 News to Your Health IBD Segment

June 23, 2018

My TV debut with News 12 NJ! I discuss having inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and ostomy surgery alongside Rosemarie Golombos, Executive Director of the NJ Chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Thank you, Prashanthi Musapet, for the special segment and for helping to create awareness and acceptance for these awful diseases!

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Honoring My Late Father

June 17, 2018

(Daddy at his Doctoral Commencement at Columbia University in the ’70s.) This Father’s Day I honor all fathers. I especially honor my father who devoted his life to the sciences and to his family. He toiled endlessly until the very last minute working until he couldn’t anymore all to ensure his wife and daughters could get by without him. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how much better life would have been if he could have lived to see his girls all grown up. ? His battle with Crohn’s and later colorectal cancer may have taken his life but he has become my inspiration to fight incessantly for my…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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Coming Out of My IBD Closet as a Desi Woman

June 16, 2018

Every single year the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation chooses a local Adult Honored Hero who shares his/her story and is honored at the Take Steps Walk in the spring. And every single year I attend the New York City walk, raise awareness and funds to help find treatments and someday a cure for these awful diseases. I bring my friends and my family together along with the Foundation’s Women’s Support Group so they can see that we patients don’t suffer alone, that many folks from all walks of life have been through hell and back at a young age. And every single year, one of my closest girlfriends has tears…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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Owning My Crohn’s Vegas Style

June 10, 2018

This blog post is a throwback to 5 years ago when I traveled to Vegas to celebrate Prashanthi’s 30th birthday! Happy birthday, Prash! This trip was important to me because it was one of the first times since my diagnosis that I let my guard down disease-wise to travel with good friends. In 2012, after my first RV fistula was found, I had my j-pouch diverted and my 2nd ostomy put in place. After recovery, I decided that my illness had been consuming me whole. It was now do or die–either I restore my sense of self by challenging myself or I languish in misery from not trying. I hit…

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Indian-American Crohn’s Patient and Ostomate Named Honored Hero

May 2, 2018

Indian-American Crohn’s Patient and Ostomate Named Honored Hero of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation By Brown Girl Magazine May 1, 2018 [All photos courtesy of Tina Aswani Omprakash] I was at the top of my game having just graduated college with a Wall Street career and BAM, just like that, the colitis hit. At the tender age of 22, when my life was just beginning, my existence became a perpetual case of bolting to the nearest bathroom. Between wearing diapers and trying to date while popping pills and using enemas, I began to realize how tenuous life is. It was a scary proposition because my father passed away at…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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