Inside ‘Diary of an Old Crohnie’
Crohn’s Disease — Living and Coping with it. A true-life account of the ups, the downs, and thankfully, the ups again — told over 40 years by the man who lived every page of it.
The synopsis
Brian Prendergast was 18 years old, working his first real job, and busking on Dublin’s streets when a trip to the emergency room for suspected appendicitis uncovered something else entirely: Crohn’s Disease. An incurable, then barely-understood condition.
What follows is four decades of hospitals, operations that ‘got bigger’ each time, medications, a marriage, a band, a business, a heart surgery, and — through all of it — a slow, hard-won shift in how Brian thought about his own mind and body.
It’s written the way Brian talks: direct, self-deprecating, occasionally sweary (don’t worry, he keeps it clean on the page), and determined to find the funny side of even the worst hospital wards. It is, in his own words, ‘a fly on the wall documentary’ rather than a misery memoir.
Genre: Memoir · Health & Self-Help
Tone: Honest, lighthearted, non-medical
Formats: Paperback & Kindle
ISBN-13: 979-8868167119
Best for: The newly diagnosed, long-term ‘Crohnies’, and the people who love them
Paperback & Kindle
Read it curled up with the real thing, or carry it everywhere on your phone or Kindle app. Both editions are on Amazon in the US, UK, Ireland and Canada.
Five acts, one true story
Before the Diagnosis
Busking on Grafton Street, Ireland’s unemployment crisis, a first job — and the self-imposed pressure Brian didn’t know was already making him sick.
‘What the F is Crohn’s Disease?’
An emergency appendix operation, a young doctor’s nervous explanation, and the word ‘incurable’ landing on an 18-year-old for the first time.
Living With It
Bigger operations, a file ‘the thickness of the Yellow Pages’, marrying Geraldine, joining a band, and years of remission followed by relapse.
The Turning Point
A new medication, a clinical trial turned down, and the mental shift Brian credits with finally getting him well: learning to ‘let it go’.
Good Times Are Here Again
A university degree at 50, the original band reunited, a brush with major heart surgery — and a message of hope for every reader still in the thick of it.
What you’ll take away from it
Brian isn’t a doctor, and he says so on almost every page. What he does offer is 40 years of pattern-recognition — the habits, personality traits and warning signs that, for him, made Crohn’s worse, and the changes that helped him get well.
- Spotting the ‘people-pleaser’ habits common to so many Crohnies
- Recognising your body’s warning signs before a flare-up hits
- Learning to ‘let it go’ instead of pushing through, every time
- Getting real answers out of consultants during hospital rounds
- Practical support options — from mortgage breaks to back-to-work schemes
- Why avoiding negative people and ‘keyboard warriors’ matters
From the chapter ‘The many tests begin…’
Full table of contents
- The child smoker
- The early years
- The chance of a job
- Time for some drastic action
- New job — the pressure begins
- Day 1 of the rest of my life
- The Richmond Hospital
- What the F is Crohn’s Disease?
- Back to work — barely
- The many tests begin…
- ‘Gone Fishin’’
- My first operation
- 3rd patient in Beaumont Hospital
- I meet my saviour — both of them
- I join the band!
- St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Operations get bigger
- All good — for a while…
- Everything gone…
- Reflection
- The Big One…
- Major Gas Leak — Literally
- Live on stage…
- A chance at CT again…
- The Reversal and Removal…
- The Comeback Kid rides again…
- The Remission
- The Final Fling — so far!
- Prevention is better than cure
- We’re gonna need a bigger file!
- Good times are here again…