It all started on a weekend in August of 2023 with what I can only describe as a constant need to use the bathroom and a tingling sensation throughout my entire body that felt like pins and needles. I felt ill but I didn’t understand why. It didn’t feel like the stomach flu but something else entirely. A week previous to this I had taken a round of clindamycin for what they thought was an infection in my tonsils. I walked around for a week unsure of what was wrong with me. I had reached out to my primary care doctor who ordered a stool test which confirmed I had C. diff. When I got the results through my online chart, I immediately called the on call doctor who ordered a course of vancomycin and warned me that if I got worse, I would need to go the emergency room.

I finished the course of vancomycin but never felt right after that. I thought I was getting better but a little over a week later it came back with a vengeance. This time landing me in the ER after I spiked a fever and developed worse abdominal pain. I was sent home when I couldn’t provide a stool sample after telling several nurses that if I could eat something then I could go instantly. No one listened to me. The doctor asked me how I was feeling and I told him, “not great.” He said that it sounded like I felt better and sent me home without medication or a diagnosis other than diarrhea. The next day I notified my primary care doctor who immediately put me back on the medication. The day after that, I ended up in the ER again as I felt extremely dehydrated, to the point where I was going to pass out. I carried my medication with me to the ER so I would take every pill exactly on time. I made the decision at this time to go to a different hospital with a much more compassionate medical provider who listened to me and, following a stool sample, diagnosed me for the second time with C. diff. I was so angry and devastated, I cried. After telling her how sorry I was for breaking down and letting all my feelings out, she said “ No, this sucks”. I learned that there are other treatment protocols for C. diff. She prescribed me a tapered treatment protocol of vancomycin that I was to begin immediately following the current dose I was taking. I came home that afternoon and slept for 7 straight hours.

The following six weeks, I was off from work because of how bad it was. I was so incredibly sick. Soon after that ER visit, I reached out to My GI Nurse Practitioner who I had been seeing me for some issues with my stomach. She immediately got me in for an appointment and switched me to a drug called Dificid. “A drug your immune system has never had”, she had told me. I switched and finished the 10 day course only for the C. diff to come back again even worse, a little over a week later. I couldn’t believe it. At this point, I was losing hope. I ended up again in the ER as I was so dehydrated again. My mental state wasn’t great and I felt incredibly weak. I really thought it was going to kill me.

This time I was put on a 10 day course of Dificid with a 21 day taper following it and somehow, I miraculously beat it. Since then, I have changed a majority of my lifestyle. My body is not the same. I am not the same person I was before. I am still dealing with significant issues and will be undergoing a colonoscopy next month to figure out why I am having chronic diarrhea and abdominal pain but no C. diff. If I do get C. diff again, they will be ready to go with a fecal transplant. Although C.Diff has taken so much from me. At the same time, it has made me braver. It’s given me courage like I had never had before.