SUMMERSIDE - Tiffany MacPhee is one gutsy teen. For the past five years the 14-year-old has lived with Crohn's disease.
Despite countless visits to doctors, repeated hospital stays, feeding tubes and varying treatments, Tiffany hasn't let the painful disease get her down.
She's president of her school's student union, loves to perform and has raised funds to help eradicate a disease that, at times, has taken over her life.
"I just try not to let it stop me," said the teen.
For her efforts and courage, the Bonshaw teen was recently named the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada's Gutsiest Canadian.
Tiffany was diagnosed at age nine.
"I just remember sleeping all the time and I had a lot of stomach pain."
At the time, she was anemic, weighing a mere 52 pounds.
"She had Crohn's sores from where food goes in to where food goes out," said Tiffany's mother, Annie. "She was totally full of the disease."
For the mother and medic, the diagnosis was difficult to hear.
"The only thing you ever heard about Crohn's wasn't great."
Tiffany spent that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas unable to eat, getting nourishment through a feeding tube.
"I only had a couple of breakdowns the first time I was on it," she admitted. "It's not actually as bad as people make it out to be. It gets easier."
Tiffany learned early on in her illness who to rely on.
"It was hard having a tube down my nose and everybody could see it. I got made fun of once. I was on the bus. Someone called me Tubey MacPhee. They never called me that again. All my friends stuck up for me."
Her disease flares up without warning a couple of times a year. When that happens Tiffany has little energy and spends most of her time in bed.
"I can't shower because I can't stand up. I can't do anything for any amount of time."
Tiffany's determined not to let Crohn's beat her. When she ran for school president at Englewood school in Crapaud, she told voters it wouldn't stop her from getting the job done.
"I'm very stubborn and I don't like people telling me what I can and can't do."
And she's doing her part to help find a cure for Crohn's.
She and her family collected $1,000 in empty cans and donated the money the local Crohn's and Colitis Foundation's Heel 'n' Wheel-a-thon and she's already collecting cans for next year's event.
She dreams of becoming a professional singer but worries that Crohn's may prevent that from happening.
"I just love to sing. I need to do it," said the determined young woman. "I'm going to work my butt off at it until I succeed. If it doesn't work out, I'll be a baker."
Asked if she's bitter about having Crohn's disease, Tiffany simply says no. It's something, she added, that's only made her stronger.
"I'm just like any other teenager."
About inflammatory bowel disease
• Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC) are two similar, yet distinct, conditions that directly affect the digestive system and cause intestinal tissue to become inflamed, form sores and bleed easily.
• There is no cure and no known cause.
• Canada has among the highest rates of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in the world and there are more than 200,000 Canadian men, women and children living with these debilitating diseases.
• About 870 P.E.I. residents, 4,700 New Brunswickers and 5,900 Nova Scotians are living with IBD
• The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC) is a voluntary, not-for-profit, medical research foundation dedicated to finding the cure for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
*For more information about the CCFC, please visit www.ccfc.ca
Other interesting facts
• The combined direct and indirect costs of inflammatory bowel disease is approximately $1.8 billion annually
• Those chronic diseases cost someone afflicted with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis an average of more than $9,000 per year
