Kristin’s C. diff. Survivor Story:

I contracted c.diff. when I had my gallbladder taken out in July of 2012. I was experiencing a lot of abdominal pain and diarrhea but attributed it to my body adjusting without the organ I went to the ER around 21 times over a year and a half before I was finally diagnosed with C.diff.

After that began the real journey, after loosing over 100 pounds in a year which took me from a size 10 to a size double 0 my doctor decided the repeated rounds of Vancomycin were not fighting the infection he suggested a fecal transplant. I was very confident in this procedure as I had only heard amazing and positive things about it.

I had the transplant done and waited a month to be checked again as I was told to by my doctor. I went in and of course the transplant failed. I was then put on more vanco and told to stay on it for another month then they would check me again.

Another 2 weeks went by and I was emergency admitted to the local hospital because my body had begun to shut down and my organs were beginning to fail. I was on full isolation for 2 weeks until the declared me c.diff. free. I was told sent home with a new problem caused by the c.diff. though.

I now had enlarged lymph nodes and they would not go down so I had an oncologist look at them and told me I had a possibility of Hodgkins Lymphoma and was scheduled for a lymphectomy a month later. After surgery I was cleared from cancer but I had contracted c.diff. back because of the surgery.

I was then diagnosed with chronic c.diff. and told we would try another transplant to try and kill the infection that was slowly killing me again.

The second *fecal transplant was again a failure and I was put on vanco for another year before I told my doctor I was going to die if he didn’t help me.

I had survived almost 3 years fighting this battle and my body was physically and mentally drained. I was tired of fighting, so he made the decision to hospitalize me again to try and cure this once and for all. I was in for almost a week before I was declared once again C.diff. free.

It has now been less than a month since my release and I am learning to deal with my new medical problems caused by c.diff. including gastroenteritis, ulcerative colitis, severe chronic IBS and permanent bowel damage.

I have been to the ER a total of 46 times throughout my journey with c.diff. and am still continuing to get my body back to way it needs to be with my weight and my eating which has become difficult due to the bowel damage.

But i will not give up and i will survive and fight this if it ever returns i will not let c.diff. take my life. Thanks for reading my story guys.