I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis when I was 18.  Ulcerative Colitis is a form of Inflammatory Bowel disease.  It tends to run in families,  I think of it as the genetic weak link you are born with.  My family seems to have intestinal issues all across the board; many relatives suffer from various intestinal problems.  Some families have heart problems, some have weight problems, and ours has intestinal problems.

When I was a teenager, I was over sensitive, felt things very passionately and totally did not know how to deal with anger or communicate with those around me when I was not happy.  I basically held every thing inside, most of my emotions.  I feel that this is what led to the break down in my body, and the weak link for me was my intestines.  This theory can not be proved, no one knows what is the root cause of any form of Colitis, Whether it be Crohns or Ulcerative Colitis,  but the general agreement in the medical field is that it is an autoimmune disease.  Something is making the body attack itself. The primary difference between Crohns Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) is that UC only affects your large intestines, including your rectum,  and Crohns can start at your rectum and be anywhere in your entire digestive track, all the way up to your mouth. Both are ulcers in the lining of either your large bowel, or some other digestive track organ, but the type of ulcer looks different.  One might ask why is important to know which disease you have, are the treatments different?   The main reason is that it is thought if you have UC, then if you have a total colectomy,  (complete removal of your the large intestines), then you will be disease free.  Crohns seems to skip all over and many people do end up with one or more surgeries in their lifetime.

Technical issues aside, getting back to my diagnoses.  I graduated High School right after I was 18.

A girlfriend and I went to Holland to work in a carpet factory for 3 weeks, and then travel around Europe for 4 weeks with the money we earned.  This was a very good friend that I loved being with.  The only problem was, that we had never spent a lot of time together before that trip, we knew each other from a youth group from our synagogue, and it was the first time for either of us to travel like that, abroad without parents or anyone else guiding us.  And even if we had spent a lot of time together before, spending 24/7 with anyone can be stressful. The first three weeks were set up for us, as we had to be at work every day and we had our evenings free.

After the three weeks were over, we started on our road adventure.  We did not know exactly where we wanted to go, but we had bought our eurail pass and were raring to go.  Now, there are some wonderful things about not having set plans and also some stressful very things.

Beautiful Flowers

The first thing I discovered was that the medium age of the back packers was 22 and not 18 as I had thought it would be.  The majority of people we met were after college.  I don’t have to tell you what a huge gap those four years make at that particular age.

Secondly, because we did not necessarily know where we were going, every time we arrived in a new town, we had to find a place to stay.  Don’t forget, this was before Internet and before cell phones. Some times we would look for hours, not fun.  AND we did not have backpacks, another big mistake on our part.  Because we were working first half of the trip, we really need two types of clothes, so we both brought suitcases, and having to shlep those heavy suitcase up and down stairs at every train station got old fast.  There were times we had to change trains and had to go up and down a few times to change tracks.  NOT FUN! In the beginning we would laugh about it and by the end I think we were both crying.

Look at that Hair!

So with each city we went to, we had to find a place to stay, decide what and where we wanted to eat, and also what we wanted to do.  I did not feel secure enough at the time to spend some hours apart from my friend, and we did not always want to do the same thing.  Tension started to develop.  As I mentioned earlier, I did not know at that time how to communicate what I was feeling, so I just kept it inside.  I am sure that my friend had as many frustrations as I did.  I have no idea anymore what went on between us, or what it was that I was upset about, but I just know that things got stressful.  I have since learned, thanks to my UC, that the people around me can not be mind readers, so if I do not tell them what is bothering me, there is no way for them to know.  AND if I don’t communicate, then there is no solution, or at least not a positive one.

This is the KEY; communicate!