The power to live
At first, the diagnosis of Crohn's disease terrified her, but, Victoria Power tells Joy Orpen, she now fully enjoys life
Sunday July 18 2010
When Victoria Power walks into a room, heads turn. This very pretty young woman radiates so much vitality she cannot fail to attract such attention.
Yet this 26-year-old suffers from Crohn's disease, a complicated ailment that would leave many other people despondent. But Victoria has turned adversity into triumph and she says that the disease actually steered her in a positive direction.
She was 17 and attending a European languages summer camp at Clongowes Wood College when she was floored with awful fatigue.
"I had just finished fifth year and, as I played netball for Ireland, I was really fit," she explains. "But in my first week at summer camp I suddenly found I couldn't even walk up the stairs."
The following weekend, Victoria went for a chicken burger with her visiting brother, with unpleasant consequences. "Afterwards I was crippled with pain," she says, "but, typical female that I am, I thought 'just get on with it'."
Victoria, determined she would not miss out on the fun at the three-week camp, told no one about her health problems.
But eventually her symptoms were so severe that she went to the doctor and was told she had a virus and would be fine in no time. But she wasn't.
Just a few weeks later, she had nuggets and chips with her sister at the Horse Show at the RDS. Victoria had been riding since she got her first pony at the age of nine -- "a spunky, adorable brown, furry little thing".
Afterwards, her sister looked at Victoria and couldn't believe how distended her stomach was. "I looked six months pregnant," she says.
The game was up; Victoria was hustled to the family doctor, who immediately referred her to a gastroenterologist. Various tests followed including a barium follow-through; Victoria had to drink a large quantity of a special liquid that was then X-rayed as it travelled through her digestive system.
A few weeks later, in October, Victoria was informed by phone that she had Crohn's disease.
"I had never even heard of it, but after I had had a good cry I went on the internet and that was the worst thing I could have done," she recalls. "It was full of doom and gloom. According to one US website you could die, you could have your whole bowel removed and you wouldn't be able to even get out of bed. I thought my life was going to be awful."
Victoria, who was then facing her Leaving Certificate, was put on steroids, which caused severe bloating and pronounced shakiness. "You get through these things at the time, but looking back it was horrendous."
She was then referred to Professor Colm O Morain, consultant gastroenterologist at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin, and finally began to get her condition into perspective.
"He adjusted my drugs and gave me lots of reassurance. He also put me in touch with the Irish Society for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (ISCC) and I am now an active member of the board. I wish I had known about this organisation from the start -- it would have been so good to talk to people who knew about all this."
According to the ISCC, Crohn's disease comes under the heading of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, which has no known cause.
Unlike ulcerative colitis, a form of IBD which affects the inner lining of the colon, Crohn's disease can affect any part of the digestive tract from the mouth to anus. Possible symptoms include persistent diarrhoea, abdominal pain, cramping, rectal bleeding, fever, weight loss, skin or eye irritation and delayed growth in children.
Investigations for IBD may involve stool analysis and rectal, bowel and blood tests.
Victoria is quick to point out that every case is different, and that there is no cure. However, with the right kind of medication and a good diet many of those living with Crohn's can, like Victoria, lead very normal lives.
"I am very careful about my diet. I have cut down on dairy and wheat and absolutely avoid pizzas and pastas. When I eat wheat I feel sick and bloated."
Victoria says that soon after her initial diagnosis she did a thorough detox and soon began to feel the benefit of not putting her digestive system under any unnecessary strain.
Eventually she felt able to have a more normal diet, which now includes lots of fruit and vegetables, porridge in winter, fish and chicken with gluten-free carbohydrates, and peppermint tea, which she disliked initially, but loves now. It is said to aid digestion.
After her initial diagnosis, Victoria also had regular reflexology treatments -- where pressure is applied to points in the feet that are said to correspond to parts of the body -- and found it hugely beneficial.
Having reflexology also changed Victoria's future plans. "I always wanted to work with disadvantaged kids and never wanted a regular job. So I planned to become a nurse," she says.
"After the experience of reflexology, I studied to become a reflexologist, reiki [harnessing healing energy] therapist and massage therapist. I am also a life coach. One hundred per cent I went down that path because of the Crohn's. Now I'm so grateful I got Crohn's -- it has completely changed my life."
Victoria, who had an idyllic childhood growing up in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, now lives and runs her practice, PowerTherapy, in Cabinteely in Dublin. She met architect Ger, her partner, while visiting Australia some years back. "I had to go all the way to Australia to meet a man from Waterford," she laughs.
She says Ger is content to follow her diet, although he does have cereal in the mornings. "He is really good and watches I don't eat anything mad," she says.
She counsels anyone suffering from digestive problems to take their symptoms seriously.
"Some doctors will tell you it's stress, or you're anorexic. Don't be fobbed off by them. Trust your instincts," she says.
"If you are newly diagnosed, your life is not over. You can still follow your dreams, go to college, have a boyfriend, or travel the world."
In the meantime, Victoria is putting her voice firmly behind an initiative to have the government recognise IBD as a long-term illness, for moral, social and financial reasons.
Consequently, they recently launched a "young people's" manifesto, calling for an overhaul of the way IBD is viewed.
"The manifesto highlights that once symptoms are under control, people with IBD may be able to live a full life again," says Victoria, who is living proof of that hypothesis.
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Irish Society for Colitis and Crohn's Disease, tel: (01) 872-1416, or see www.iscc.ie. To read the long-term illness petition, see www.ibdforlongtermillness.weebly.com.
See www.powertherapy.ie
- Joy Orpen
Originally published in
