Get Smart about Cannabis™

Acceptance

Before I decided to have the doctor give me an end ileostomy I had a j-pouch. My j-pouch was constructed out the small intestine during my first surgery when the colon was removed. However, due to the number of complications and the severity of my illness my j-pouch continually had problems.

One of the only benefits of having the j-pouch was my vanity; I was small. The j-pouch wasn’t very healthy and I was on Cipro for years because of what was called pouchitis. The Crohn’s life is a rollercoaster. During the early years of my marriage when I had the j-pouch you could not only feel but watch the food move through my small intestine. I would jokingly refer to it as my alien baby.

When my Crohn’s would flare, the alien baby would look like a scene from a horror movie.. After my 30th birthday, when I was about 32, I decided to choose comfort over vanity. I asked the doctor to remove the j-pouch because of some problems and give me a permeant ostomy and they did. I call it Spitty.

I believed that would put an end to the surprise flares and surgeries and I was wrong. Most recently, in 2014, I had a second perforation. There came a point when I had to simply accept no matter what I do my life will always have ups and downs. There will always be times that are amazing and times when I feel like the pain is driving me crazy.

Learning to Live with Crohn’s means learning the signs; when is it a middle flare and when is the pain severe enough it warrants immediate medical attention. Accepting each day, always looking for the positive.

I had to accept the Lord in my own way. My spiritual journey started at birth and I still feel as though I’m a student of the Lord. The movie The Secret changed helped to change my life. After watching it over twenty times I started to impart some of it’s philosophies into my daily life. At the time We were literally broke, living in a trailer park with my parents just North of were 8 Mile Road ends in the countryside suburbs of Detroit.

Today, because of my change in attitude I look at my life and I’m extremely grateful. I live in a nice condo community in Las Vegas, a city people pay to visit, and I am paid to write for the Las Vegas Business Press, Open4Cannabis.com, and I’ve started my own business stephanieannis.com - the only thing that truly changed was my thinking.

Today, I wake up and no matter how bad I feel or how much my stomach turns and burns I can say I am blessed! Faith in the Lord and a change in my thinking motivated me to achieve my dreams, by the Grace of God each day I wake up I know I’m living my dream.