living with IBD – Page 7 – Own Your Crohn's

acceptance, awareness, Colorectal Surgery, coping with flare, Crohn's, living with IBD, Ostomy, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis

Metamorphosis

August 13, 2018

This past weekend marked 3 years since my series of surgeries at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. That trial was my greatest test to date. 3 surgeries back to back to clean out remnants of j-pouch, rectum and anal sphincter that left behind a wound the size of a small football. From daunting saltwater whirlpools, Jackson-Pratt drains, Hydrogen Peroxide flushes into my pelvis, a wound VAC and procedures under sedation every other day to clean out the wound. I was on 6 different painkillers and I was barely hanging on for life. In the months prior, I had drains galore, one from my back down my leg with a bag…

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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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acceptance, coping with flares, Crohn's, living with IBD, Ostomy, Ulcerative Colitis

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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Tina’s Take Steps Honored Hero Speech

May 18, 2018

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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Tina Aswani Omprakash is named an Honored Hero by the Greater NYC Chapter of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation

May 18, 2018

Take Steps Honored Heroes represent warriors in the Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis community who share their story to inspire others. OC EDITORS MAY 3, 2018 Tina Aswani Omprakash was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at 22-years-old. After many years of suffering from the disease, her colon was removed and she now lives with a permanent ileostomy. Tina shared with us how Inflammatory Bowel Disease has changed her life. “I felt like I was at the top of my game after graduating from college with a career lined up on Wall Street—that’s when the colitis hit. At age 22 – just when my life was about to begin – every day boiled down to “where’s…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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Uncategorized

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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Tear Up Your Flare-Up

April 28, 2018

Whether it feels like a bus just squashed us flat or we have that sudden urge to defecate with no end in sight, we all know that feeling when a flare is imminent. And while it is no fun, it is a part of living and breathing with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). So how do we manage flares? And more importantly, how do we to cope with them to live the fullest life possible? We all know flare-ups are unapologetically anxiety-producing. But staying in those thoughts may cause us to flounder. Overanalyzing and blaming ourselves for a flare, or even for our diseases, is unfair, unreasonable, and counterproductive. IBD has…

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Tina Aswani Omprakash

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