GI Nurse With IBD Wants People to Know They ‘Are Not Alone’
Even as a gastroenterology nurse, Alison Headrick wondered if her symptoms were all in her head.In her nine years as a nurse, Headrick, now 34, had often fielded questions from patients who had inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). She’d get calls from people who were experiencing flare-ups at the worst times, like one woman who was on her honeymoon and wondering if she should go to the emergency room.“I remember hanging up the phone and thinking, ‘I can’t imagine what this is like. I couldn't go through this,’” Headrick says.Six months after that call, Headrick noticed that she was losing weight and experiencing rectal bleeding, but she dismissed it as an effect of overexercise, since she had recently gotten into cycling. When she experienced abdominal cramping, she figured it was just…