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Community Corner

Local Mom Crusades Against Crohn's Disease

Meet Stephanie Gill who is battling for a very personal cause.

Name: Stephanie Albers Gill              

Husband: Rick Gill

Kids: Cameron, 10, Nathan, 9, Benjamin, 7

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Mom icon: Rick’s mom—she is amazing!

Favorite song in my iPod: Don’t Stop by Fleetwood Mac

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Words to live by: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.” ~ Dr. Seuss

How I unwind: Reading and book club

Facebook: Yes

Twitter: No

Shrewsbury resident Stephanie Gill is a wife and a mom, a high school teacher and a softball coach. She is an avid reader and enjoys scrapbooking. She is also living with Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic autoimmune disorder characterized by inflammation of the digestive tract, causing abdominal pain, bloating, vomiting and diarrhea, and weight loss. It is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)—an umbrella term for diseases that also includes colitis and ulcerative colitis. There is no cure.

Gill was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in her 20s after several years of symptoms and numerous tests that yielded no conclusive results. Eventually, she landed in the hospital in excruciating pain from what she thought was an inflamed appendix. A CT scan revealed instead that her ileum was inflamed—a sign that indicated Crohn’s rather than appendicitis. She was treated at the hospital and went home to resume planning for her wedding, which was six months away.

After Gill married her husband, Rick, in 1999, the couple moved to Shrewsbury and she continued teaching at Marlborough High School. Then, married only two months, Gill had the first of several surgeries to remove portions of her intestines scarred by the ulcerations caused by Crohn’s.

Fortunately, Crohn’s did not prevent the Gills from starting a family. The natural immunosuppression that occurs during pregnancy safeguarded Gill from additional problems while pregnant with her first two children. However, when she became pregnant with her youngest, she was already sick enough to need surgery, which was successfully performed while she was 19 weeks pregnant with Benjamin, who is now 7.

While Gill has taken many different medications to try to manage the effects of Crohn’s, all of them have had side effects and none of them have proven effective for long. Surgery has been the only option to combat the intestinal scarring, and she now suffers from “short gut syndrome,” in which the remaining part of her small intestine (3 feet of the original 16 to 21) is too short to absorb all of the nutrients she needs.

Support from the community has been of the utmost importance to Gill.

“We are blessed to have all the wonderful friends and family that we have,” she said. “Neighbors have come to my house for midnight ER trips, they have watched my kids while I spent five to 10 days in the hospital two or three times a year, and they’ve watched my kids when I come home from the hospital to six weeks of no driving and barely moving.”

Every year in June, area Crohn’s and colitis sufferers and their supporters gather at Colt State Park in Rhode Island for the Take Steps for Crohn’s and Colitis walk to raise funds toward finding new treatments, and eventually—hopefully—a cure. Gill and her team of friends and supporters participated in the walk this weekend. The team has raised between $2,000 and $4,000 each year since 2006.

“This is really important to me because I have taken every medication out there. All of these drugs have worked for some amount of time and then they have stopped working,” said Gill, who is considered too high risk to try experimental drugs. “I want new drugs and new options for people with this disease because it can be really debilitating.”

Most of all, Gill is determined not to let Crohn’s define her role as a mother.

“I don’t want my kids to look back someday and remember ‘how sick Mom was all the time,’” she said. “I really think that a sense of humor and positive thinking go a long way.”

For more information about Crohn’s and colitis, visit the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America's website.

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