Zak

Zak is 13 and spoke in front of an audience of over 150 at our Oxford family day in 2018.

This is his story.

Hello, my name is Zak and I am 13. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease aged seven. My first symptoms started in February 2012, when Norovirus went around my family and school. It was so bad my school was closed so it could be cleaned and bleached. After a while, everyone got better, except me. I still had diarrhoea and some vomiting weeks after my family got better, so my mum took me to the doctor, who suspected lactose intolerance so I went on a lactose-free diet, but, after a while, I still wasn’t better. The doctor then referred me to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, where I had an endoscopy. The doctors found inflammation in my bowels and in February 2013 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.

My first form of treatment was a liquid diet for six to eight weeks, which brought down inflammation a small amount. I then had two more endoscopies. and had two more liquid diets, both of which changed little. I also tried Azathioprine, which made me sick and I developed an iron deficiency.

At this time I started going to a psychiatrist to help me with anger issues that had developed. They taught me methods to handle my anger, one of which was ‘lemons’ which meant clenching your fists together as if you were squeezing a lemon. Later on, I also went on steroids, which made me bloated but did help. 

 

I was picked on at school for my bloated size, with names such as ‘piggy’ which didn’t do much for my self-esteem.

I finished my steroids after a while and was taken off Azathioprine.

After a long discussion with doctors about which course of treatment to use, I was finally put on infliximab infusions. On the first infusion day, I also had an iron infusion which was painful as my canulas kept on getting blocked. The day after my infusion, the improvement was visibly working, so I kept on Infliximab infusions and have had them ever since every eight weeks.

Since 2014 (when I started my infusions) I have had roughly 30 infusions, and my Crohn’s is now in deep remission.

I can now do what I want to do and am not held back by tiredness. Last Christmas I was on the West End stage in Her Majesty’s Theatre, in a one-off western show known as Trouble's A Brewin, in which I played a comedic outlaw’s sidekick. I also have been on two-week long scout camps, on which I did rock face climbing, canoeing and other things. I have also started my Duke of Edinburgh bronze award, in which I have started air rifling every Saturday and badminton on Fridays I wouldn’t have got here without the help of my family, my friends, all of my doctors, all the ward nurses and the other hospital staff. Thank you.

 

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