My first infection started when I was barely an adult. I was sick for months before we knew it was C-diff. I had stomach cramps and abnormal uterine bleeding on top of my diarrhea and vomiting which confused everyone who was trying to help. The OBGYN I had been seeing had told me my illness was out of her scope and referred me to a GI. I would later learn he was one of two people in the state who could treat my degree of infection at that time. One day, we were sitting in his office as my health declined. We were running through the whole timeline of symptoms for what felt like the thousandth time and I saw a lightbulb click. He told me, “I couldn’t see the forest through the trees because it isn’t something I think to look for in someone your age. I think you have C-diff.” 

We ran the test, and, in 2015, I finally got the diagnosis after close to a year of debilitating illness that would soon cost me my job. I went through multiple antibiotics with recurrences following each round and was finally approved for a more targeted treatment. I was much healthier at the end of the summer. I got married in the fall of 2015 just after my 21st birthday which we had been worried I would not live to see. I wish this was where my story ended. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning. 

Between 2015 and 2021, I experienced several recurrences, which left me spending tens of thousands of dollars and literal years on antibiotics while jumping through bureaucratic hoops just to stay alive.

 My first FMT was in 2016 and was unique in the fact that I had to bring my own blender and provide my own donor.  Following my first FMT, I more than doubled my body weight, which was attributed heavily to the FMT. I had my first child  in March of 2017 at 22 years old. While I did not have any symptoms or infection at the time of childbirth I was unable to prove that I did not have an active infection due to being unable to test without symptoms. With the stigma and misinformation around C-diff, my newborn and I  were immediately placed in quarantine at the hospital. The providers were not adequately educated on the illness, so many of them would not touch me or my infant. They would not take him to the NICU even though they had admitted to me that he needed to be in there for better care following his birth. Due to fear of a recurrence infection after antibiotic treatment for group B strep and the disappointment of my care during birth, I started looking for community resources and education online, where I came across the Peggy Lillis Foundation. I joined as an advocate in March of 2017, just 2 weeks after my son was born. I was 22 years old. 

 My next FMT was not far from the first. This was a dark time for me. The brain fog was so intense that I have few memories of these years of my son’s early life. 

My most recent FMT was in June of 2021 after a lengthy battle against the system to qualify for life-saving treatments during COVID and at great physical, financial, and emotional cost to myself and my family. That FMT saved my life and I had been lucky enough to avoid another run-in with the disease from 2021-2025.  During the occurrence from 2020-2021 I lost more than 2⁄3 of my body weight, dropping below 100lb. I had stopped ovulating entirely. I spent more than 9 months straight on antibiotics after months of pulse runs of other antibiotics. This infection lasted over a year and nearly cost me everything while my son watched his mother suffer in a way he could not understand. 

The impact of this is no small matter; this is my life. There has not been a time since 2015 when  I could take an antibiotic without contemplating my own mortality and how this will impact my children. I have issues stemming from C-diff that there’s not much to do to help. I have moderately severe gastroparesis that leaves me bedridden when it flares. I was robbed of years of my life and lost countless memories of my family to the brain fog that surrounds this disease. I spent years unable to find a job or keep work because of the severity of these infections. It even impacted my fertility and family planning. I spent so long trying to conceive a second child and I finally did have my daughter in 2022 whose conception and birth had their own issues. 

Even now in 2025 as I battle a new infection I have higher hopes with the new treatments available, but every run in with C-diff could prove to be my last and that’s a fear I will have to learn to live with. I have changed my lifestyle completely since that first diagnosis, but C-diff doesn’t care. C-diff does not discriminate when it infects you. It ruthlessly destroys the lives of the people it touches. 

During my time fighting this illness I have realized the best way for me to use my energy and time between infections is to use my experience to voice a need for significant change in the treatment of C-diff and raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance. We need a world where nobody is impacted the way our family has been by this disease.