Hello I'm Brandie-Lee Steiger, at the very bottom of this short story is the daugnting task I have ahead of me. 1 medicine alone is $27,000. A year and I need a double course of these meds costing $54,000 yes some of that cost is covered but there are many out of pocket expenses that now include travel expenses As I have to get treatments 140kms about 360kms round trip this is every 2 weeks. Also with partial liver death I can't do as much as a normal 33 yr old for example not only find a job but keep one that is willing to deal with my health care issues. I have swelling in my upper right quadrant so much so I look approx 6-7 months pregnant that's my painful amount of swelling. As you can imagine even giving someone a hug can cause me to wanna drop to the floor if it's touched wrong. I have found a few positions that hurtless and allows me to be productive during the day at home. Please help me so I don't have to go through it alone, I'm positive that I can beat all this and come out a winner. Sometimes we just need that hand to hold or a finger to grab to keep us from falling over. Bless you all this is my short story! 

I'm a 33 year old single mom with 2 children at home under the age of 10. I was 8 years when the problems for me started. I always had issues using the washroom I remember spending days and days lying in the fetal position crying because I didn't know what was going on with my body, and I was in so much pain. When you are a child pain isn't the same as an adult, it hits you way harder the older you grow. That is where my life story begins, I won't go into grave detail about everything but know if you ever have a question for me please let me know. The more people that are educated on early symptoms of this sometimes debilitating disease the less amount of years you may find yourself or a loved one suffering as I did and getting the proper care faster, difference between existing and living!

I spent the better part of my youth very sick, in and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices. My mother she was always told that it was all in my head and that there was nothing wrong with me. That I was searching for attention as all children my age do.We knew my father had this though in a milder form, not even close to what I have had in terms of problems with the disease itself or with the doctors.

Still somehow I always knew I would keep a smile on my face and light in my heart because I know I am a strong woman, and God only gives you what you handle.

When I was 19 I moved from Calgary to Red Deer the place I still call home. I spent weeks at a time in and out of hospital, when I was 22 I was hospitalized 14 times. They had refused to help me in the severity that was needed due to the critical state of my illness. At that point in life I became pregnant I went into full remission, those were the best 9.75 months I've had since I myself was a child ( Isabella was comfy and 3 weeks over due I didn't mind one bit). She was my Angel and saved me from the pain for a little while. When I gave birth to my beautiful girl Isabella, she was the perfect baby if they were all like her I would have had 20! 6 weeks postpartum and I was again hospitalized for a flair up. What I had was, a 6 week old baby, no family around me that were helping me and my new fiancé Steve and I did it almost 100% alone. It seemed as though I was going through most of the issues and my illness that I had alone. I have been on many different drugs for this and at that point was allergic to 3 of the main medicines used to treat Crohn's. I was mortified I had no idea what to do, who to turn to or if anyone cared enough to help me in what I thought then would be the worst part of my life. Boy was I wrong about that being my rock bottom!

I had several surgeries, a hysterectomy and gallbladder disease that almost killed me because I was now labeled as a problematic patient due to my intolerance of medications. No doctor wanted to touch me, too much work I would hear doctor visit after doctor visit. I was now to the point of a simple meet and greet would cause me anxiety and stress me out I knew what was going to happen. My gallbladder was finally removed in 2009, later that year I was blessed with news of my second daughter Autumn. She too was my Angel even though I had a very bad pregnancy and couldn't work much after 2 months in. I was placed on bed rest and spent the rest of my pregnancy doing virtually nothing. On doctors’ orders I would spend 37 weeks in total not able to lift my baby girl Isabella. When Autumn came and I laid on a delivery table, I was told I had died for over 2.30mins, it would take them that long until I could be revived. I remember hearing a tiny voice calling to me and when I awoke I was in recovery from an emergency DNC and placenta hemorrhage. If someone says to you "I wish I didn't know what happened" that was the time I didn't need to know in such detail about my passing. I had a parade of nurses and doctors coming in the next few days hugging me as I received 6 blood transfusions. They all told me their version of the events I had 18 people in my room and my ex-husband said it the best "looks like a few deer were gutted" on the table I was lying on.  The nurse that was with me from beginning to end was so sweet she had short grey hair and was full figured. She looked like a grandma or an Angel, to me they are one in the same. 3 years after this, I would be standing at work and was told I was bleeding. I had stood there working as I was hemorrhaging, they let me go to the hospital where I ended up needing 4 blood transfusions that day.

I came thru that and all the prior for a reason, I am still and know I will go through many more events in my life because of this disease.Each of these are shaping and moulding me into the person I am now and will become in the future.

2 weeks ago, in the middle of June, only 12 weeks after surgery to help relieve my Crohn’s systems for what they said would be 5 – 10 years, I was again hospitalized. My Crohn’s was back and they have now found partial liver death due to not being properly treated after surgery. In March 2015 I was operated on and released 3 days later by a doctor I had never met. He told me they were keeping me in the hospital only because of pain control. There is a point in my recovery, I can't pin point it exactly, but it is where my surgical pain ended and my Crohns pain began. A lesson to remember always is you have to be very active in your own care when you have a chronic hidden disease and explaining it to people IE: Doctors and Nurses every time can be daunting.

I'm going on day 14 in hospital this go around, I have seen my girls twice in that 2 week period, so here I am July 1st 2015 in the worst state I have been in. I'm divorced as my disease seemed to take too much from the marriage. I now have partial Liver death but the good thing is it can repair itself. But with all the immunosuppressive therapy I receive to put my crohns into remission, it brings it closer to years to recover from this as my body can't heal very well even from the common cold. My resection is infected and my Crohn's is back in full force! I have just about the same amount of active disease as before the surgery, and thanks to a blood clot that yes I count my blessings, could have went to my heart or brain instead it went to a regenerative organ, my liver. So I speak with a happy outlook on life, because sometimes all the small things bring about the biggest changes in life.

My new story has begun, and I'm in the fight of my life!! Between treatments on week 0, 2, 4 and every 4 weeks after that, traveling to the best medical centre in Alberta the Foothills Hospital, because the medication I'm going on, which isexperimental for Crohn's disease (that was me 6 years ago on Humira) and is very costly but could be the only thing to help me. It has been proven to work on ulcerative Colitis and my doctor, one of the leading Crohn's researchers in the World thinks it will work for me. These medications take time to enter the body and slowly shut your immune system off. The Liver death is very painful and there is nothing they can do but help me manage symptoms. For 5 days straight I have laid in bed wanting to vomit but it's part of what I am going through and I either put up with that or I give up on my life as I think it can be.

I NEED HELP PLEASE, I have never been one to ask family let alone a world of strangers for anything, but it has come to that point with me. I'm un-hireable due to having to go for treatments all the time and my hospital stays. I have looked into working for myself doing something I love but right now I'm lying in the hospital bed praying that a few will read the story, mind you a very shortened version of the story, of what life for as an individual with an invisible disease. Just because you can't tell on my outwards body doesn't mean the insides aren't screaming. With uninsured medication, costs of being a single mom, living and doing on my own, making sure I have a home to go back to and food in our bellies any help would be a blessing right now. I am putting all of me out there in hopes of surviving this and knowing that even at our own worst someone out there isn't any better and that one thing I can still count on is the human heart. The spirit of people helping people in their most dire moments and that those moments would be taken through life and built upon.

Loving Always

Brandie-Lee Steiger B

If you shoot for the moon and miss, you will still land among the stars!