Biography: Life With Crohn’s Disease.

At just nineteen years old, Lillian Martin, known to most as Lilly, is navigating life with Crohn’s disease. As a child, Lilly moved back and forth between Florida and Tennessee with her mother and younger brother for seven years. After her stepfather and mother divorced, she, her mother and brother all moved from Lake City, Florida to Madison, Florida in 2015 to stay with her grandmother. A year later they moved in with her new stepfather and her four stepsisters in Lake City.  

The frequent moves throughout the years presented challenges for Lilly’s education. From elementary school to high school she attended eight different schools, including a period where she was homeschooled. Moving around so often made it hard to settle and make friends. “I didn’t even wanna try to make friends cause I’m just gonna leave,” stated Lilly.  

As a child she was diagnosed with lactose intolerance. She continued having stomach problems periodically and frequently became ill. In February of 2023, she experienced food poisoning symptoms that never completely resolved.   

By April , she could not eat or drink normal due to the severity of nausea she was experiencing. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with a urinary tract infection from a lack of hydration. Due to the many antibiotics she was prescribed, she had developed Clostridium Difficile, also known as C-diff. She was 170 pounds and the doctors assumed she was taking laxatives and diagnosed her with a eating disorder. Lilly went on to contract C-diff three separate times. That was one of the many times she was hospitalized.

In June of the same year, she was diagnosed with pancreatitis, suffered a stroke and contracted C-diff for a second time. In July, she had kidney stones, and in August, she was told that her gallbladder was enlarged and would have to be removed. Within a week she had surgery to have her gallbladder removed. By the end of October, she contracted C-diff for the third time and by January she weighed 89 pounds.

It was not until 2024 that she would be tested for Crohn's, meet her now, gastroenterologist, and be diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. She has tried two different treatments for the disease and is currently on her third treatment out of nine available in the world. She has also been diagnosed with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) and has had issues with her eyes from the stroke she endured.  

Lilly considers her diagnosis the turning point for her long, frustrating journey as she is slowly gaining back normalcy. She started a job in August of this year after she spent two and a half years unable to work. She considers herself fortunate as most people who suffer from Crohn’s do not get diagnosed until about two to five years after their first flare.   

She has struggled mentally from her health journey, finding it hard to separate herself from her illness at times. Lilly said she had learned, “If you introduce yourself as ‘hi, I have Crohn’s and my name is Lillian,’ then you let your disease carry you, but you need to carry your disease.” She refuses to her diagnosis define her as a person.