Maureen's Fight: Hope Beyond the Knife

0:00On April 5th, a 65-year-old retired teacher from Edinburgh, named Maureen Dalglish, has lived with Crohn's disease since 1988. When she was just 28, she's undergone four major surgeries, in 2001, 2006, 2013, and most recently in 2025 to 2. Tackle scarring in her bowel from the condition that's kept her on strict liquid or limited diets for long stretches just to manage the pain and complications. Before her latest operation, Maureen dealt with brutal abdominal spasms, nausea, fevers, dizziness, and even blackouts that landed her in the hospital. Repeatedly, she donated tissue from that surgery to a University of Edinburgh research team, studying ways to fight the fibrosis that Crohn's causes in the gut. Maureen says the disease puts life on hold, but she's learned to plan around it and push forward. She's thrilled about this research, calling potential new meds a game-changer, even if it won't help her directly. She got involved to spare others her.

1:00Struggles. She shouts out the amazing team at Western General Hospital for their care over the decades. She's seen big leaps in diagnosing and treating Crohn since her diagnosis, but fibrosis still means surgery is the only fix right now. The scarring keeps coming back after they remove damaged bowel sections, causing blockages that demand repeat ops. This push for better fibrosis control could rewrite the story for folks battling Crohn's giving hope beyond the knife.