You Only Have Crohn's Once!
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You Only Have Crohn's Once!

A light-hearted guide for living with IBD

About the Book

Jeff Geerling was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 17, when he was in high school. He decided it's better to laugh than to cry, and so through the years, has written stories and encouraging words with his own style of heartfelt sarcasm, to deal with Crohn's complications.

After years of remissions, severe flares, and trying every drug available, he had a permanent ileostomy surgery in 2018. This book captures some of the highlights—and struggles—of living with a chronic illness like Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis.

Humorous anecdotes and encouraging stories are included to help other IBD patients and those considering surgeries like resections or colectomies.

About the Author

Jeff Geerling
Jeff Geerling

Jeff Geerling is a developer who has worked in programming and DevOps-related positions for companies with thousands of servers. He also manages infrastructure for services offered by Midwestern Mac, LLC, and has been using Ansible to manage infrastructure since early 2013, and Kubernetes since 2017.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
    • What is IBD?
    • I don’t trust you, where do I go for more information?
  • 1 - The Joy of Crohn’s
    • Phobias
    • Diagnostics
    • Medicines and Treatments
    • Relationships and Family
    • Work-Life Balance
    • Mixed blessings
    • Summary
  • 2 - At the Hospital
    • Sights and Sounds
    • Nurses
    • Doctors
    • Food and Drink
    • Summary
  • 3 - At Home and Elsewhere
    • Home Sweet Toilet
    • Social Life
    • Work
    • Summary
  • 4 - Colonoscopies
    • For starters, the Molotov cocktail
    • The morning-of, a.k.a. ‘The Purge, Chapter 2’
    • The procedure
    • The after-procedure
    • The Memory
    • Pro Tips for Prep
    • Summary
  • 5 - Other Common Tests and Minor Procedures
    • Blood Tests
    • Stool Samples
    • Capsule endoscopy (pill-oscopy!)
    • Flexible Sigmoidoscopy
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
    • CT Enterography
    • Upper endoscopy
    • Barium Enema
    • Summary
  • 6 - Medication
    • Corticosteroids
    • 5-ASAs
    • Immunomodulators
    • Biologics (the “oo-mabs”)
    • Summary
  • 7 - Surgery
    • TODO.
  • 8 - Colectomy Surgery, a.k.a. ‘The Big One’
    • Benefits of a Proctocolectomy and Ostomy
    • Downsides of a Proctocolectomy and Ostomy
    • Recovery and my new friend, the Stoma
    • Bowel Prep
    • Recovery in the Hospital
    • Getting ‘The Bag’
    • Going Home
    • Summary
  • 9 - Community, Advocacy, and Meetups
  • Appendix A - Advice for Parents
  • Appendix B - Advice for Friends
  • Notes

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