Dear CCFA,
Please don’t take this the wrong way but these ads are doing more harm than good in our fight to raise awareness. This disease has literally almost killed me. Not because I couldn’t stop using the restroom but because a med I was taking to control symptoms caused me to develop pancreatitis and my kidneys were beginning to shut down. I was in the hospital for three weeks and had to have a bowel resection due to a perforation.
When people see this ad campaign it makes them believe that my disease consists of needing to use the toilet constantly and that has NOT been my experience. Please try an ad campaign that is less demeaning and that doesn’t make a mockery of my Crohn’s disease. I love the CCFA and I have been in the awareness walks and donated lots of money and time to you, but I refuse to support you if you keep running ads that devalue my experience. The loss of blood, nausea, lack of immune system, malnutrition, 3 yrs on 80mg of prednisone, the constant pain, pills, and infusions. Did you notice that my biggest issue with Crohn’s doesn’t involve being stuck on a toilet? Try making ads that are actually realistic and maybe then we as an IBD community can be taken seriously and stop being known as “the pooping disease”.
If you can’t do that then you have just lost a huge CCFA supporter, fundraiser and all of my friends and family who once thought you all were on the patients’ side.
Sincerely,
Melissa Stewart
Melissa Stewart
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