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Growing up with crohn's essay
Growing up with crohn's essay
Growing up with crohn's essay
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Crohn's in College Students
Avi Michael absentmindedly plays with his lip piercing, his thin frame draped casually over his bed. His wall is covered with posters of Bob Dylan and Modest Mouse; two guitars are propped up on a stand next to his closet, another lies on the vacant bed across from his.
“I want to be a rock star,” said Michael, a 20-year-old history and film major at Northeastern University, and front man for the band, The Sex and Murder.
However, touring with his band would be difficult, Michael says. He suffers from Crohn’s disease, a chronic and often debilitating ailment that causes inflammation in the digestive system, primarily the large and small intestines. Symptoms include rapid weight loss, abdominal pain or cramping, and rectal bleeding.
Michael was diagnosed as a senior in high school at the age of 18.
“I was really sick for a while. It got to the point where I would get sick and throw up after everything I ate,” he said.
As a result, he lost a lot of weight; at 5’8”, Michael weighs only 128 pounds. The average weight for a male of his height is closer to 160 pounds.
Over 200,000 Americans suffer from Crohn’s, according to Dr. Richard Curtis, chief of gastroenterology at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Though the disease does not target a specific age group, certain risk factors do exist. People who have a genetic predisposition to it are more likely to develop Crohn’s, said Dr. Curtis. For example, people who have a close relative with Crohn’s have a 20 percent chance of being diagnosed with it themselves. Crohn’s is more common in Jews than in non-Jews; it is most common in Ashkenazic Jews than any other group.
“Crohn’s is usually thought of as an old person’s disease,” said Michael. The harsh reality is that many Crohn’s sufferers are college-aged teens, many of whom were diagnosed as young children.
Caitlin*, a 16-year-old sophomore at the Boston Latin School, was diagnosed at the age of 11. Trying to complete her schoolwork while maintaining her health is often difficult, Caitlin said.
“When I feel good (almost all the time), Crohn’s doesn’t affect school at all,” she said in an e-mail. “It’s when I get so exhausted that I have to miss a day of school. I feel guilty missing school, and depending on the time of year, I get so much work the next day that I have to make up.
Sonnenberg, A. (1990). Occupational distribution of inflammatory bowel disease among German employees. Gut, 31(9), 1037-1040.
Inflammatory bowel diseases include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. It can lead to severe bowel problems, abdominal pain and malnutrition. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis can also be painful and debilitating. Medication can eliminate symptoms, in addition to prevent flare-ups. Surgery may be needed in some cases to repair the colon.
The Tower of London is one of the most famous historical buildings in the world. Constructed by William the Conqueror in 1078, this grim, grey, and awe-inspiring tower, is the most haunted building in England. Perhaps the most well known ghostly residents of the Tower of London are the spirits of Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Princes in the Tower and among others.
Ulcerative colitis progresses from the rectum and moves proximally. Distal disease refers to inflammation that is limited to the rectum (proctitis) or rectum and sigmoid colon. Here it is referred to as proctosigmioditis. If the disease is more extensive it includes the left side of the colon and can cover the splenic flexure. This occurs in 40% of patients. Extensive colitis occurs up to the hepatic flexure. Pan colitis affects the whole of the colon and this can affect up to 20% of patients. Some patients with pan colitis have involvement of the terminal ileum, this is caused by an incompetent ileocaecal valve.
Bjerke, Juel M. "Week 2 Lecture Notes - Achieving Business Process Excellence and Process Re-engineering." MFGO 601 - The Globally Integrated Manufacturing Company. 2 Nov. 2011.
Class in the American Culture is based on economic and social differences, and it remains a powerful force in American life and has come to play a greater role in today’s society. American culture classified social classes as three different levels, the higher class which is classified as the wealthier and have the most money and a certain lifestyles and clothes. The middle class more like the businesses, people who have a reasonable income. And the last class is the low class which are the working class people. Those in the upper middle classes enjoy better health and live longer than those in the middle classes, who live longer and better than those at the bottom. That 's because money, good jobs and connections help the better-off get the best medical care. People in the upper class also maintain a certain lifestyle and sometimes different clothing lifestyle than the ones in the lower classes.
Although much is yet unknown about Crohn's, there are several risk factors that are bring presented in current research. With a common occurrence between first degree relatives, there is a suggestion t...
On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean at 2:20 a.m. after striking an iceberg, with the loss of more than 1, 500 passengers and crew. Thomas Andrews knew the ship’s flaws when he designed her nevertheless, Captain Smith knew of the collision between the ship and the iceberg. However, left all faith in the “Unsinkable Titanic.”
Then on the fifth day of its journey, Titanic was progressing across the Atlantic. Captain Edward Smith had plotted a new course upon hearing earlier reports of ice from other liners, there were many more communications that day of ice in Titanic's path. On that very night of Sunday 14 April 1912. The sea was calm, the sky dark and clear, and the temperature was getting colder by the minute. With conditions like this an ice berg is very hard to spot. Then, at 11.40pm the lookout rang the alarm and telephoned the bridge saying "Iceberg, right ahead.” It was already too late to avoid the iceberg and Titanic began to start sinking within less than 40 seconds later, a series of holes appeared on the hull. It also took 3 ho...
In 1912, the “Mother of All Shipwrecks” went down including the trust of all future technology. Jim Willis states in 100 Media Moments that Changed America that, “The Titanic was the pride of the white starline” (Willis 48). The white starline put so much confidence in the titanic they decreased the number of life boats on board. The Titanic’s massive size was the only record it truly held. William H. Garzke from The World Book explains that “Many people believed the ship was unsinkable because its new hull was divided into 16 water tight compartments” (Garzke 300). These water tight compartments had such a small chance of any water escaping past them, that the boat could still stay afloat even with a few compartments filled with water. The water compartments were so sealed that the never imagined t...
Youth who suffer from Crohn's disease find completing activities such as daily chores, exercise and incidental physical activity like walking to and from school without feeling exhausted o...
People eat food every day without thinking twice about it, because it is a necessity for us to live. How often do you think about what is in the foods that you eat? How many calories does it have? Are there any vitamins and minerals in it? Is it high in fat? For most of us and especially college students who live a busy life on the go, the answer to that question is probably no. Since becoming a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania Academy of Culinary Arts, I have been more interested in food and what people are eating. Also since more young Americans are becoming obese I want to find out what they are eating and where. Going to college and seeing how students have poor eating habits I want to find out why they are eating this way. Is it because they are away from home for the first time? Or is it because that is the only food that is available for them? I also want to find out if students would eat healthier if it was provided for them? My hypothesis is that students eat unhealthy because it is more convenient for them. There is usually no time to cook a homemade meal and most college students are always in a hurry so it is easier to pick up takeout. Also most college students don’t know how to cook. I also believe that most college students don’t care if the food is unhealthy for them, as long as it tastes good. Hopefully, in the following pages I will uncover the wide world of college eating.
The story of the Titanic was told long before the ocean liner was even a thought. Fourteen years prior to the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson wrote a book called The Wreck of the Titan. In his book, a passenger ship called Titan set sail from England and was headed to New York loaded with first class passengers and luxurious items. The Titan hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic, causing the ship to sink and the passengers to panic. The lack of lifeboats and life jackets on the Titan lead to the loss of many lives. Morgan Robertson’s book would predict the fate of the great ocean liner, the Titanic, fourteen years after.