C. diff affects us all.

As told by her daughter, Meg. My name is Meghan Mimnaugh. I am writing this story for my Mom, Gail, aka “Meg’s Mom.” My mom was 64 years young when she died from C. diff colitis on August 5, 2012. I was 27 years old at the time. My mom had long suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bouts of pneumonia since my father passed away of cancer in 2009. Both were long time smokers. She had been hospitalized on three separate…

In February 2010, I was treated in the Emergency Room at one of our local hospitals for a panic attack. I believe this is where I picked up C. diff. After being asked to provide a urine sample as standard protocol, I used the restroom after a lady who had several bouts of diarrhea. Of course I washed my hands. But after opening the door of the restroom, I only used alcohol-based hand sanitizer after getting back to my triage room. Little did I…

My battle with C. diff began in January 2015 after taking three doses of Clindamycin prophylactically. I may have picked up the spore during a stay in the critical care unit or while visiting a family member in the ICU. I may have even picked it up while grocery shopping. I will never know. It is now the end of August as I’m writing this story. I am not sure if my battle is over. When I was first diagnosed, I was admitted to the hospital and…

I was diagnosed at the age of 42. I woke up one morning with stomach pains and couldn’t eat or drink for twelve days before going to hospital. They did all kinds of tests, and ultimately said that I had Colitis. They prescribed Flagyl, but I just continued to get worse and was admitted to hospital. During my stay at the hospital, the doctors performed all kinds of test–colonoscopy, endoscopy–but nothing was found. I started feeling a little…

I have followed Peggy’s story, and was happy to have found some info regarding C. diff online when I was recovering from one of the five recurrences of C. diff that I’ve had. I grew up in Brooklyn, had my first apartment in Marine Park, and am close to Peggy’s age when she became sick, but I haven’t yet shared my story of the lovely C. diff monster! I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), which is an autoimmune illness. It’s treated with…

I acquired my C. diff infection a couple of months prior to diagnosis while having a minor hip surgery in December of 2010. Even though I had symptoms, I kept testing negative. Doctors kept telling my husband that they did not know what was wrong, but that I was very sick, and then later said that I was hours from death. After an exploratory laparotomy–and a very wise doctor deciding to send a sample to a larger hospital that did polymerase…

As told by her mom Sara Our first experience ever with this C. diff occurred in June of 2015. Our daughter Kaley, who was at four at the time, had a month of weird stool. I kept calling and taking her to the doctors, and they kept telling me she was constipated—yet she was going up to six times a day. Finally, the stool ended up being bloody. I knew something was terribly wrong. I took her in, and asked that they check her stool. In April…

While attending Fr. John McNeill’s Memorial Service today, I saw many people I have not seen in years. It was wonderful for so many to gather and celebrate John’s life. A few who were at the event are aware that I have been suffering greatly with chronic C. diff, and encouraged me to reach out to the Peggy Lillis Foundation and share my story. I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis (UC) when I was 18. I have had numerous surgeries and…

I had just started a new job in December 2010 at the local newspaper. In mid–January 2011, I began to get very ill. I had extremely bad diarrhea, and it was difficult for me to keep anything down. After about four or five days, the illness became so bad that I could not go to work, so I went to the doctor. My doctor had me give them a stool culture so that he could determine what was making me so sick. The next day, my doctor called and said…