Back in 2015, my son Milo was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, he’s doing well and is currently in remission but it could reoccur at any time. Last year, his elder sister, Poppy, was diagnosed with Colitis. Despite endless trips to, and stays in, hospitals, samples, blood tests, steroids, pills, and all manner of nasty things I won’t mention, both Poppy and Milo have been unbelievably upbeat and positive throughout. While I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what they have been through, in many ways both have so far been relatively lucky. There are many others who have not been so lucky.

So on October 7th, Milo and I will attempt to play Padel continuously for 18 hours; from 6am until midnight against a variety of opponents to raise as much money as we can for Crohn’s & Colitis UK. 

I have been training properly since about March. It has been fairly difficult to know how to train for an event like this; if you’re running a marathon there are endless websites with training programmes all set up but not so many for an 18 hour Padel marathon! But I’ve taken advise and have done a mixture of gym work (either building my core strength or HIIT exercises), a lot of playing Padel and a lot of walking. Milo has done a lot of running but he’s also 30 years younger and a lot fitter and will be fine on the day. Whether my 56 year old body will get through the day is another matter… My average week has involved about 4 gyms sessions of about 1.5 hrs each, plus maybe 4-5 hours of Padel and recently have been walking around 60 miles a week.

There are an estimated over half a million people with this lifelong disease in the UK alone. Many suffer in silence because of the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding these diseases. Crohn’s & Colitis UK do an amazing job of not only giving people hope, comfort and confidence to live freer, fuller lives but also to improve diagnosis and treatment and fund research into a cure.

Poppy’s Story

Following my 2022 colitis diagnosis, I experienced an extreme flare up, starting in December 2022 which resulted in hospitalisation. Whilst trialling two courses of steroids I continued to lose a lot of weight, not absorb any nutrients and was experiencing all sorts of horrible symptoms, which left me fatigued during the day and stopped me sleeping well during the night. As anyone who saw me during that period can attest, I looked very unwell and so after two months of no change, I was admitted to hospital. I spent a week there - undergoing a lot of invasive tests, many steroid infusions, iron infusions, many tablets and finally my first infusion of the miracle drug infliximab.

Once home I went through a long recovery process, which to some extent is still ongoing. I completed 16 weeks of steroids, and now I’m taking eight tablets a day, plus every eight weeks I’m back in hospital for infliximab infusions.

Things still aren’t perfect, we haven’t quite found the right combination of medication, I’m suffering with chronic fatigue and I’m back and forth to the hospital for constant tests.

Crohn’s & Colitis UK really are the most amazing charity, throughout my flare up, my hospitalisation and every one of my new medications, I have turned to their website and Instagram page where there is always a foundation of easily digestible (lol) information which has calmed and informed me. I can only speak from my experience of colitis about how miserable it is but I’m in the unlucky position of also having witnessed my brother suffer horribly with his Crohn’s.