Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I lost fiancé and my job after getting the Dynamo ‘moonface’
Seeing Dynamo’s bloated face on his Twitter feed last week as he revealed his battle with Crohn’s disease brought back painful memories for Vicki Grant.
The magician told how the steroids he takes to battle the inflammatory bowel condition made his body and face balloon.
As a sufferer herself, Vicki knows only too well what it’s like to have the Crohn’s “moonface”. So in an act of support, the mum of four tweeted the star a picture of hers puffed up to almost double its usual size.
“One of my sons told me ‘Mum, you scare me looking like that’,” says Vicki. “It broke my heart. I hated the way Crohn’s made me look. But when I saw Dynamo’s post it brought back memories. It’s so great he’s not afraid to show everyone what the disease does.”
Throughout her teenage years, Vicki, 37, suffered stomach pains and mouth ulcers – and it wasn’t until 2013 she was finally given a diagnosis that was to have farreaching consequences.
REUNITED
Her fiancé could not cope with the news and walked out on her – and she had to give up her job.
But nearly five years on, Vicki says she could not be happier – because the condition has reunited her with her first love.
Now she is sharing her story about living with Crohn’s to raise awareness of the illness and encourage others to discuss it.
Symptoms include diarrhoea, abdominal pains, and blood and mucus in your poo – making it a condition many people do not want to talk about.
“I had no idea the journey I was about to take,” says Vicki, of Hackney, East London. “Even now in remission, I still have a symptom every day, whether it’s a mouth ulcer, joints or stomach pain, or the urge to go to the toilet. There’s never a day I don’t feel like I have Crohn’s.”
As a teenager,
Vicki never put on weight and constantly had mouth ulcers, some so severe she could not eat or drink. In 2013, her stomach pain became unbearable and she noticed blood
in her stools. Fearing it was cancer, she put off seeing a doctor until the pains and severe blood loss landed her in the Royal London Hospital.
At first it was believed to be a bug, but after scans, X-rays, an MRI, endoscopies and a barium swallow, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s. Her bowel was 40 per cent damaged and she was kept in hospital for two weeks after developing erythema nodosum – an inflammatory condition that causes bumps just below the skin surface. “It was agony,” Vicki recalls. “I couldn’t walk and was on oral morphine for pain relief.”
Vicki was put on 25 pills a day, a mixture of steroids, anti-inflammatories and bone protectors.
A week after leaving hospital came the bombshell from her fiancé. “Two months earlier he had proposed to me on a beach in Tenerife,” says Vicki.
“But he could not deal with me having this. He went out one night and never came back. He
Magician Dynamo last week shared a selfie of his steroids ‘moonface’ to highlight what it’s like having Crohn’s disease. Here mum-offour Vicki Grant tells us her own story of what the condition has cost her, and
how she copes
kissed me goodbye then broke up by text. “I felt scared and alone. I got to a point where I didn’t want to be alive, but I had three children.
“They were my strength.”
It has been a hard journey. The pills made Vicki pile on weight, so she now has two wardrobes nicknamed the “good” and “the bad and ugly” – size 6/8 for remission and size 12/14 sizes for “flaring” episodes.
She was too ashamed of the condition to tell people about it. She also had to move back in with her mum so she could help look after her three children – Jamie, 17, Terry, 13, and Teddy, nine. And because the illness left her unable to drive, Vicki had to quit her job.
But when Daniel Harvey, 39 – Jamie’s dad – heard about her illness, he offered to help. Love blossomed again and last May they had Danny.
Although Vicki went into remission in 2014, she still has flare-ups, and warehouse manager Daniel is by her side whenever she needs. “He loves me for who I am,” she said. “He’s been my rock. When I have joint pain he’ll rub my back and legs for hours. He’s cleaned up after me when I have had accidents. Now I thank my ex for what he did, because he brought me my first love back.”
Vicki is no longer on medication, but she has to go into hospital for IVs – iron once a year and Vitamin B12 three times – to stop mouth ulcers. She also found support from the Crohn’s and Colitis UK charity, and sufferers’ forums.
“I have lost loved ones, family and friends due to my illness,” she says. “But I have gained some amazing friends too. I am the happiest in my life right now then I have ever been.”