Selan Lee had just celebrated her 18th birthday when she was told the news that would change her life forever. During the early May bank holiday weekend in 2018, with just weeks to go until she was due to sit her A-Levels, Selan was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.
Before her diagnosis, Selan, now aged 23, was going to the toilet three to four times a day or almost immediately after eating anything. She said: “I came back from a family holiday and noticed that there were increased trips to the toilet and I felt more lethargic than before.
"I believe that going so frequently with diarrhea and abdominal pain led to anxiety about going to the toilet. Not knowing where the nearest toilet was, or the slightest stomach cramp would send my anxiety through the roof.
“I think I had, like, 100 per cent attendance at school, and then I just didn’t turn up for a good two months. That was a big warning.”
Selan, who’s from New Malden in Surrey, ended up in hospital where she was told that she had Crohn’s – a type of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) with no known cure. Although more than half a million people in the UK have IBD - the two main forms of which are Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis – many people don’t know much about the conditions.
In both Crohn’s and Colitis, the immune system goes into overdrive, attacking healthy tissue in the gut. You can develop Inflammatory Bowel Disease at any age, although – like Selan – a quarter of people get their diagnosis before 30.
The list of symptoms is long, but key warning signs to look out for include stomach pain, urgent and frequent diarrhoea, tiredness that doesn’t go away, and blood in your poo. Understandably, it took Selan some time to come to terms with her diagnosis.
She couldn’t go to university at the same time as her friends, had to stay at home when she should have been out partying, and even missed her first gig because she was too unwell to travel to the concert venue let alone sit through the show. One thing Selan did have during this incredibly tough time was her art.
She sought comfort in her creativity, which gave her an outlet when she needed it most. “Initially I had no way of speaking about my illness and art has helped me massively with that.
"My friends had seen me before my diagnosis, so they could understand the difference in me and the impact, but for someone who didn’t know me that well and would ask, it was very hard to describe how much it was affecting me. How lethargy works, how fatigue impacts you, how going to the hospital multiple times can be draining. For me, art can really describe that more eloquently than words can,” she says.
Selan is now working as a health and care intern, recently teamed up with other artists with chronic illnesses to put on an exhibition in London about what it’s like to live with a lifelong condition. “I called my art exhibition Low on Spoons, Not Identity,” she explains.
“It comes from the Spoons Theory that was developed quite a few years ago now. It’s a way to describe the energy-limiting aspect of chronic illnesses and mental health.
"The idea is that you have a set number of spoons’ worth of energy every day: sometimes you have lots and sometimes you have very few – everything you do takes up some of that energy. If you have a low-energy, “low spoons” day, you’re going to choose to do less to conserve the energy you do have. It might make you look a bit lazy, but it’s what is going to help you get through the day."
As well as inspiring and educating people through her art, Selan is working with the charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK to share her experiences of what it’s like to be a young person with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. “I know that my colleagues who had no real idea of chronic illness, have said my work has really given them a better understanding – which is fantastic,” she says.
Sarah Sleet, CEO of the Charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK says it’s important to listen to your gut and seek help if something isn’t right. She said: “It can be tempting to brush the symptoms of Crohn’s and Colitis off as something minor. You might blame your dodgy stomach on a food intolerance, stress, or assume you’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with you.
"What you might not know is that even if you don’t have all the symptoms, or if they come and go, you should go and see your GP. Why not let our symptom checker do the talking for you? It’ll take you 30 seconds to complete and will help you decide what to do next.”
There is no known cure for Crohn’s or Colitis, but both can be treated with medication and – in some cases – surgery."
