The December issue of CIRCLE will be published on Tuesday November 27th.  The eNewsletter, which is published by ImproveCareNow for patients & families living with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, will feature parents talking about transition points, supporting each other and the importance of caring for their kids now.  We'll include some tools and resources on transitions too.  And as always, you'll find links to trending IBD topics from the past month, up-to-date ImproveCareNow remission rates and more.  Don't miss it. Sign up to have CIRCLE delivered to your inbox today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-K2B1-6cQk

Do you pledge to be a pain in the butt?  Until a cure for IBD is found.

It seemed like a good idea the way that all things seem like a good idea at first. I told my Mom, and this was her exact reaction, “What? You’re going to run a half-marathon?” My Mom laughing at me should have been - for a normal person - a road-sign to turn around, to rethink the plan. But no, instead I smiled and said, “Yes!”

But this story doesn’t really begin with me. It begins with an email. I met my very dear friend Taylor through The Gutsy Generation blog. Without fail, we would text or email daily - but we had never met in person. We were enthusiastic to meet in person (I know, it sounds like a cheesy romantic comedy, but stay with me), but it seem idealistic and near impossible between our school schedules and the geographical distance. But - if there’s a take-away message to this blog post - never, under any circumstance, underestimate two gutsy girls.

And so, one day in June, Taylor and I decided to run the Niagara Falls International Half-Marathon. Crazy? Yes. Gutsy? Certainly. We were both runners already and it was a fantastic excuse to meet in person. The preparation got underway with the creation of a ‘GUTSY MARATHON MIX’ (yes, in all caps!) and the continual sharing of songs to be vetted for the playlist. I booked my flights - it was all happening for real.

I’m not an especially athletic individual, but in the last few months since my surgery in January, I’ve hiked Machu Picchu and completed a sprint triathlon, so it only seemed right to continue on in my crazed athletic quest. I had told several people about the race, including my roommates who made the most adorable signs for me around our apartment. Early Thursday morning, I boarded a plane and met my very good friend in the flesh. And it was as if we’d always known one another. We continued to find little things that fueled our theory that we’re the same person (e.g. we use the same toothpaste, go to schools with the same initials, etc) - we might have become friends because of our IBD, but we remained friends because of who we are as people.

The half-marathon was not for IBD awareness, but that didn’t deter us. We made shirts that had our last names on the back, our year of diagnosis, and then ‘Colonless 1’ and ‘Colonless 2’ on the sleeves. In a word, we were psyched. Morning found us quite early on Sunday, and we gathered in the kitchen, making our marathon breakfast, grinning sheepishly at each other and trying to imagine completing the 21 km course.

The day was perfect - perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect. The course followed the water and with the changing leaves, it was a beautiful (albeit very long) Sunday run. People were cheering, holding water on the side of the course, there was even a little boy with his hand out for high-fives (of course I stopped and had to restrain myself from asking his parents to take a picture with me). It was just me and my iPod and the bounce of my braid against my back as I ran. Just open road and sunshine and a very big, but attainable, challenge ahead of me. I began the race to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, my ostomy anthem, and was ecstatic to be able to listen to my gutsy marathon mix during the race. There were moments when it was hard and my feet were sore, moments when I tried to drink the water while running and instead doused myself in it, and moments when the sound of the crowds cheering and the cow-bells ringing could only make me feel so happy to be where I was.

I felt this exact way in Peru and during the sprint triathlon - you look forward to the finish line so much because there’s a sense of accomplishment and awe, but those last few feet when you can see it, you want to turn around and do it all again. I sprinted the last 100 meters or so, crossed the finish line, which was amazingly at Niagara Falls, and was given a pro-style aluminum-like cape and a medal. I. Had. Done. It.

Now to get all philosophical on you: In life, and especially life with IBD, there are no guarantees. There are ups and downs, times when you feel awesome and times when you’d prefer to pull the covers over your head and pretend the world wasn’t waiting. Taylor and I had a mantra the entire weekend leading up to the race, “Hell or high water”. We were both sick or injured in some degree, but were determined and completely obstinate - we were running the race and nothing could stop us.

Hell or high water, people. Hell or high water.

Jennie

After years of planning for transition, this is it. On Monday, my son will borrow a car from a classmate, drive himself 35 miles from his university campus to a Dallas hospital, use valet parking for the first time, check in at an infusion center, and get his Remicade infusion, alone, for the first time.

He’ll be far from his Ohio home and far from me. This will be his 53^rd infusion; I’ve been there for nearly every one.

Having a child with IBD means many things. It means learning a new language, a new way of living, developing new family dynamics, gaining a new perspective, and seeking, desperately, to get guidance (and to give guidance). Also, it reinforces the notion, "You don't know what you don't know." But, luckily at my child's care center, and across the ImproveCareNow Network in which our care center is a participating member,  guidance is available to parents and guidance is also sought from parents.

As I watch my child learn to live with Ulcerative Colitis, I learn too. So, not only does my parental guidance come from her medical team and other parents, it comes from my child as well. She guides me by letting me know I am being overprotective or questioning too much - how did you feel today? what was your level of stomach pain? how many times did you go to the bathroom? - and that sometimes it is best to just leave the UC inquisition for another day. When she is feeling good, she just wants to relish the moment and forget about UC. She guides me to live in the moment as she has learned to do and to appreciate the gift of now.

Parents as partners and teachers is important to a child's medical team. Parental guidance is a must when communicating a child's flare pattern as it is as unique as are our children. My daughter's care team relies on me and my husband to guide them through her symptoms and health pattern so they can care for her better and deliver better outcomes.  It cannot be "family-centered" care without the family participating as partners in a child's care.  Doctors cannot provide the best care for IBD kids without parental guidance.

As my child is a tween, my parental guidance to her during a medical visit is to model clear communications with her medical team. When my children were very young, I would always say before a doctor's visit, "Doctors are like detectives, and we have to give them the clues to help them solve the mystery."  Teaching our children how to communicate with doctors is a necessity.  With her teen years fast approaching and college around the corner (in my mind anyway), I must use my parental guidance to prepare my daughter for life-long medical care without me. I must model the behavior she needs to learn to do life with UC on her own, someday.

Even though my daughter is only a tween, her transition to being able to care for herself must begin now.  While I want to be by her side through her IBD journey forever, the reality is I cannot do that.  So I must not fail her by not preparing her or guiding her toward this kind of independence. We are very fortunate, our care center has a formal transition program from pediatric to adult GI care.  It  is just this type of guidance that I need to receive from them to do this right.

ImproveCareNow (ICN) made transitions a focus at their recent Learning Session in Chicago.  Young adult patients, medical professionals and parents came together to bring their perspectives, provide their guidance for the many transitions children with IBD face and how to navigate them as smoothly as possible.  Across the ICN Network,  parental guidance is not only needed, it is valued.  The ICN Parent Working Group (PWG) is proof of that - parents from ICN centers are coming together to guide one another and the ICN Network.

When a child is diagnosed with IBD, or any chronic disease, parental guidance is important. Why?  Because family-centered care requires a circle of communication and guidance from all involved at different points on the journey.   It is the needed model to resolve the issues and meet challenges of pediatric IBD. Without the many facets of "parental guidance", our children will not live as well as they should with IBD.  So not only is parental guidance important, I believe it is required.

The ImproveCareNow Quality Improvement (QI) Team at the University of Michigan has been working very hard at improving their QI processes. They now have had a long trend of improving remission rates from one population management report (PMR) to the next. But like good researchers, they had to ask themselves: is this a real improvement in disease status for our patients, or an artifact of better data?

An Alcatraz Bathroom Installment:

Before I begin, I share with you the following from the fountain of all knowledge, THE WIKIPEDIA, regarding a particularly horrifying story published by Stephen King in his fifth short story collection, “Just After Sunset.” The story is called, “A Very Tight Place.”

"Curtis Johnson . . . is lured to a deserted construction site by his neighbor, Tim Grunwald, with whom he's been having a legal dispute involving Curtis's beloved dog, Betsy, who was killed by Tim's electric fences. He is confronted by Tim who forces him into a Port-O-San, tips it over and leaves him trapped there in the heat of a Florida summer day to die. With no way to get help, Curtis must figure out how to escape or die.”

Can you think of anything more disturbing? Being tipped over in a port-o-potty, on a hot day, and being literally consumed by “what’s down there”? I think about this EVERY time I use a port-o-potty.  By the way, I’m not going to spoil how the story ends. If you just can’t go on without my giving away the ending, I must quote two great modern characters from the classic film, “The Princess Bride,” which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary:

Inigo Montoya: I must know.

Westley: Get used to disappointment.

Let’s be honest, shall we? We’ve all been there. You gotta go, but the only option is a nasty-looking port-o-potty. (Also from THE WIKIPEDIA. The following names for these gizmos that I have been referring to, and will continue to refer to, as a “port-o-potty” (even though I REALLY like the last one): P-Pot, Porta-John, PortaJane, Port-O-Let, Port-a-Loo, Portaloo, Porta-Potty, Tidy John, Kybo, Biffs, Standard Porta Potty Restrooms and Toi-Toi).

A problem unique to port-o-potties is that I find that there’s no, absolutely zero, thought for the next user. “Hey, this thing is already SO NASTY. I’m not going to spend two seconds wiping my feces off the seat for the next person. That next dude isn’t expecting a positive experience.”

I cannot express the level of nausea that I am currently experiencing just thinking about this. I could barf right here at my desk. Which would be bad. I’m taking deep breaths to calm the lightheadedness. Also small sips of Diet Coke.

Unlike other Alcatraz Bathrooms, upon entering you really have no choice but to do something with the seat. I don’t usually see the option of a toilet seat cover, so you’re relegated to using TP. I have found the TP dispensers in port-o-potties to be of the sub-standard, high-friction variety. You know what I mean. You can’t grab off a long piece easily. In fact, you have to slowly pull (or pull and turn) so as not to break off a piece that is utterly useless for your purposes. Did I mention that, if you’re in this situation at all, you gotta go? This preparation takes time, people. TIME YOU MAY NOT HAVE.

Fact is that many of us have no choice. In fact, WE SEE THE PRESENCE OF A PORT-O-POTTY AS A BIT OF A SAVIOR. Isn’t that sad but true.

When the moment comes to explain to someone what IBD is, there is a second where I'm mentally debating between the 'real' answer and the 'nice' answer. The 'real' answer outlines, well, reality and what was happened to me, being gutted and all. The 'nice' answer is the 'Oh, it's not really a big deal, my bowels can be fussy sometimes'. Oh lies.

But how do you explain to someone the troublesome storm beating around in your abdomen when you look fine without causing them to tailspin into a reaction of pity?

And so when I was thinking about this the other day, it hit me - I'm like Superman. (Clarification: I wish I were, wouldn't that be nice!) We're all like the super-hero who is an ordinary kid, typically on a smaller side (think Tobey Maguire in Spiderman), and it's only in the darkness or night when we become our true selves. Not the become-the-massive-green-hulk, but the idea is that we look normal, we are (mostly) normal, but there is something different about us. What I love about my metaphor is that unlike other things I've heard, this is a positive way to describe us. We have super-hero courage and strength and passion about awareness and advocacy, so how are we not super-heroes?

In high school, I was the girl who was sick. The girl with the NG who was once asked if I snorted an iPod shuffle (which, to this day, I am not sure how that's anatomically plausible anyway), the girl who would vanish for long periods of time (aka in the hospital) and suddenly reappear (see, super-hero!), the girl who made it a habit to take ambulance rides from school to the local ER. When I came to college, I tried very hard to just be me - the person who is in love with Patrick Dempsey, likes to run, works in a preschool, and wants to get a PhD in Psychology. I am all of those things and the 'super-hero' part is my Crohn's and my ostomy, things underneath my clothes and inside of me that don't make me who I am but contribute to what my body is. You should never feel like you owe someone a confession of your diagnosis - because you're not your IBD, you're Sarah or Kate or Joey or Marcus.

And you're a super-hero.

Jennie

I am perhaps the proudest a sophomore could be of her undergraduate institution, and every year, I have the incredible opportunity to share my passion for Hendrix through a little event called Phone-A-Thon.

Yes, I see you cringing. I apologize if an overly enthusiastic student such as myself has called you just as you’ve sat down to dinner to tell you my story and ask for your support. I promise, some conversations feel as awkward for us as for you.

Sometimes, though, there’s that conversation that flourishes - that reminds me not only why I love interacting with alumni, but why I’m passionate about sharing my passions with strangers at all. The conversation where someone just “gets it.”

Tonight, an elderly alumni struck up a conversation with me about my minor, Medical Humanities, which explores the human aspects of medicine. I soon found myself sharing with him my role on ImproveCareNow’s Patient Advisory Council and my IBD advocacy efforts. I never expect anyone to have heard of IBD or, if so, to appreciate my passion - but here was someone who just “got it:” he has several friends with the disease.

This, on the same day that we talked about Miralax in Organic Chemistry class, and a girl on my campus approached me to let me know my Huffington Post article really inspired her family because her little brother has Ulcerative Colitis? Today has been a laundry list of unexpected happenstance. (Did you know that the main chemical compound in Miralax can not only relieve my constipation, but also contribute to a Suzuki coupling reaction? Neither did I! Found that out while drinking my daily Miralax-Gatorade breakfast oddly enough.)

Back to the story, we struck up a conversation about the significance of strong communication skills in medicine. He shared with me the story of a doctor of his who takes the time to sit down and ask him a simple question at the start of each appointment: “How’s life?” Not in a friendly-opening sort of way, but in a genuine I-am-truly-curious sort of way. Five extra minutes of this doctor’s time, he shared, give him that extra push to stick to his treatment regimen. Five minutes every three months remind him that his doctor truly cares about him, which in turn, makes him truly care about his treatment. In turn, I shared the story of a resident who treated me during my initial hospital stay and shared her experiences living with Crohn’s with me. She is the single most important factor that determined my attitude from that day forward. She took the time to return to my room after rounds and really listen to my feelings about my diagnosis. Fifteen minutes of her time changed my life as much as my diagnosis.

Five, ten, or fifteen minutes of just listening can profoundly change patient outcomes. It’s incredible, but I believe it’s true.

ImproveCareNow believes it too - creating innovations and changing the system to give every patient a voice and the chance to feel heard - and conversations like the one tonight remind me just how proud I feel to be a part of an organization dedicated to giving voices to young IBD patients and their families all around the country and England.

In the words of a wise old stranger, “It’s not just medicine that will cure people. It’s doctors who will listen, believe, and give hope.”

As I write I am coughing and sniffling my way through my first cold of the season.  Since my daughter started school in 2010 I have been exposed to a whole variety of new viruses - especially this time of year.  Speaking of viruses, there's another kind out there that can make the common cold look like a walk in the park.  The Flu!