Weekend walk to raise funds for Crohn’s, colitis
On June 4, Tesa Ramsay will remain gutsy in her efforts to raise awareness about a disease that has affected her life.
The 17-year-old Grade 11 student at Riverview will be participating in the area’s second annual Gutsy Walk, part of a cross-Canada effort to raise funds for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s in November, 2015, and since then has been dealing with a condition that affects one in 150 Canadians, one of the highest rates in the world. It hasn’t been easy for Ramsay, who was also diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis two months later.
“It was really hard when I was first diagnosed and it took about 15 months to get my Crohn’s under control and now I still have to watch what I eat,” she says. “I had to be tube-fed for four months — that was my treatment when I was diagnosed. And then, a couple of times throughout that year I was tube-fed for about a month each time and then even this year January until March, I was back on my tube feeding.”
While she’s back on normal food, she now takes 11 medications daily and receives weekly injections and a monthly Remicade infusion to deal with it. Crohn’s has doubled its numbers in Canadian children under the age of 10 since 1995. More than 250,000 Canadians live with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the digestive tract. Symptoms can include abdominal pain, weight loss and diarrhea. While some people experience bathroom issues with the disease, others may only experience weight loss and it’s often that unexpected symptom that leads to an eventual diagnosis, says Tesa’s mother, Carrie Ramsay, one of the Gutsy Walk’s local co-chairs.
“People, including us before Tessa was diagnosed, really know nothing about the disease,” said Carrie Ramsay. “We thought we did. A lot of young kids are being diagnosed with Crohns. Many of them are presenting their only symptom as severe pain in their stomach. It’s not cramping — it’s a stinging sensation. Tesa would get 30-to 40 of the pains each day and her fever would spike over 104 and she lost a lot of weight, like 30 pounds. Her symptoms, and many people with Crohns, that’s their only symptom. Lot of
people do have bathroom issues — it depends where it is in the bowel but I think it’s important to note that that’s not always the case. Everyone presents differently.”
Last year the Sydney River family participated in the first Cape Breton Gutsy Walk and decided this year that they would also help organize this year’s event, which will take place on Sunday at Wentworth Park bandshell. Registration begins at noon and the 3K walk is expected to begin at 1 p.m. So far 11 teams and 27 participants are registered but since last year’s event attracted about 150 people, Carrie Ramsay, an event co-chair this year, expects more to attend on the day.
“This year is a bigger walk, there’s more participants and more teams registered,” she said. “There’s just a lot more awareness over the past year.”
And Tesa is also involved on the walk committee as part of her personal efforts to raise awareness. She’s already the top fundraiser for the local event with more than $1,800 raised.
“Tesa is all about raising awareness,” says Carrie Ramsay. “She has been very proactive since her diagnosis in November 2015. She has an Instagram account where she posts regularly about her illness and communicates with others around the world about her diseases. She also has started her own YouTube channel where she talks about her condition.”
For Tesa, it’s all part of her day-to-day battle against Crohn’s.
“It will always be a challenge,” she says.