Former AEW star Big Swole opened up about her battle with Crohn’s Disease and how it nearly cost her her life.
Speaking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Big Swole reveals why she calls the day she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease her “second birthday” and how that day changed her life forever.
“April 3rd, 2008. My second birthday is what my parents call it. I remember it like it was yesterday, I was just going to see my doctor and I remember going to use the bathroom, and nothing but blood came out of my orifices. The smart thing to do was go home, and that’s what I did instead of going back into the doctor’s office, I was just like ‘I’ve gotta lay down.’
“I was delirious and delusional, I was past the point where I wasn’t thinking clearly at all. So my friend Sarah took me back home, and my dad looked at me, and he was like ‘You look like death.’ So my mom was like ‘I’ll give you a choice. You can stay here and take a nap, or I can take you to the hospital.’ So I end up in the back of my mom’s car. I flatlined on the way to the hospital, so that’s why it’s my second birthday.”
Big Swole continued, revealing just how severe her situation was, and that she could have died within 30 minutes if she’d chosen not to go to the hospital that day.
“So when I woke back up I remember being in the hospital, I remember them getting me out of the wheelchair, and they were like ‘Ok, so your daughter’s intestines are eating each other,’ so my small intestines were swallowing my large intestines, and he was like ‘In 30 minutes or less, it’s gonna burst, your daughter will become septic, and there’s nothing we can do, she’s gonna die right here.'”
After the procedure, Big Swole was informed of her Crohn’s diagnosis.
“And this is right before my 19th birthday. They put me to sleep, I wake up, and there’s tubes everywhere, there’s tubes coming out of my nose, there’s tubes coming out of my lady. The doctor came in and he said, ‘We removed about a foot and a half of your intestines, you have Crohn’s disease.’
“And my sister was there, and she’s a nurse, and she said, ‘That’s usually only in babies,’ and he said ‘Usually yes, but it seems as though your body was laying dormant.’ Crohn’s was laying dormant for the past 18 years, as I’m like shoveling down McDonald’s and beef and all that other stuff that was apparently bad, and it was going to come to an earth-shattering kaboom at the end!”
After signing with AEW in December of 2019, Big Swole parted ways with the company in November of 2021. Big Swole has been very open about her battle with Crohn’s disease, and gave fans an update and more information about the condition during a flare-up in early 2021.
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