Cassandra’s Story

My story starts in August 2010 when my daughter Dionne, aged 14 and weighing 43 kilos, was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease.  As a family we embarked on a huge IBD learning curve. Coming to terms with the names and side effects of the medications was daunting and scary. So many questions.

Worst moment – Dionne’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, and it was at this time I had the worst moment of being a mum. She was so sick; I was holding her in bed when she asked me “Mummy am I dying?”. I can’t put into words how this made me feel, I said I don’t know, let’s not worry about something we don’t know about, it won’t do you any good, we just must wait and see what the colonoscopy brings. I got her settled, left her room, dropped to the floor, started crying thinking OMG, how sick is my little girl that she thinks she might be dying, this had never entered my thoughts.

I became a volunteer with CCA because I wanted to speak with others who were going through the same journey we were and how we could learn from each other. I also want to make sure that in a regional area we were able to access the same services available in the city and to support CCA.