Healthy teen reveals symptom that led to a chronic diagnosis
Gracie Cappelle should have been looking forward to her freshman year at Texas State University.
Instead, she got a crash course in ulcerative colitis (UC).
'I had never heard of ulcerative colitis,' Cappelle, 19, told The Post. 'It took me a really long time to even understand what was happening within my body.'
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5 Gracie Cappelle was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 18.
Summer Lange Photography
Cappelle was diagnosed with the chronic disease in the summer of 2024. She spent her freshman year eliminating dairy and fatty foods from her diet — not easy as a college student — in the hopes of managing her symptoms since there's no cure for UC.
About a million Americans are believed to have UC, the most common type of inflammatory bowel disease. Experts aren't exactly sure what causes the condition, but they think it's related to abnormal immune system reactions.
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Inflammation and ulcers develop in the lining of the colon and rectum, often causing stomach pain, bloody diarrhea and frequent bowel movements. Crohn's disease is similar but can affect any part of the GI tract.
UC is most often diagnosed in people 15 to 30 years old. Adults between 50 and 70 are also at higher risk.
5 A doctor shows a model of the colon. In ulcerative colitis, inflammation and ulcers develop in the colon and rectum.
Jo Panuwat D – stock.adobe.com
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Cappelle didn't immediately realize that something was amiss. She occasionally noticed blood in her stool but figured it was no big deal.
'It wasn't bad at first,' Cappelle recalled. 'I looked it up a couple of times, and the only two things that would come up were internal hemorrhoids or colon cancer. And I was like, 'OK, well, I don't have colon cancer, so it's probably just internal hemorrhoids.' So I wasn't worried about it.'
The bleeding eventually intensified to the point where it was happening every day — and she found herself rushing to the bathroom more often. A colonoscopy was scheduled for two weeks before she left for college.
'I literally came out of my colonoscopy, and my doctor told me that I had [UC],' Cappelle said.
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5 Cappelle spent her freshman year eliminating dairy and fatty foods from her diet — not easy as a college student — in the hopes of managing her symptoms since there's no cure for UC.
Summer Lange Photography
She needed to overhaul her diet immediately.
Individual triggers vary, but UC sufferers tend to experience flare-ups with high-fat foods, spicy foods and foods rich in insoluble fiber.
Alcohol, caffeinated beverages and sugary drinks are often no-nos.
5 'I had never heard of ulcerative colitis,' Cappelle told The Post about getting diagnosed.
Gracie Cappelle
Before her diagnosis, Cappelle typically had yogurt for breakfast, a sandwich with Cheez-Its for lunch and ground turkey, chicken or steak with potatoes or rice for dinner — or fast food.
'I definitely didn't eat well,' she admitted. 'If I wanted [Raising] Canes or Chick-fil-A, if I wanted fast food, I was going to go get the fast food.'
She first axed spicy foods, including her beloved Flamin' Hot Cheetos and hot sauce, soda and gluten.
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Unfortunately, her stomach pain didn't go away right away.
'I was trying to eat whole foods, but obviously that's hard, especially being a freshman in college,' Cappelle said. 'You're living in a dorm, so you really don't have a kitchen.'
She came home to the greater Houston area in December, cutting dairy and alcohol from her diet and stepping up her exercise routine.
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She also began working with a therapist and getting infusions of Entyvio, prescription medication that targets gut inflammation.
5 Cappelle's healthcare regimen includes therapy visits and Entyvio infusions.
Gracie Cappelle
Her stomach pain and bloody stool subsided, and she plans to return to Texas State in August.
'I think it'll be easier this next year, because I will have an apartment and my own kitchen,' Cappelle said.
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'It is hard because you can't necessarily eat what everybody else is eating. But, for me, personally, it's not worth it to eat like that, knowing what could happen if I do eat like that.'
She's been sharing her journey on TikTok, hoping to connect with people facing the same challenges.
'The hardest part for me [is] feeling so alone,' Cappelle said.
'I really just want to put the message out there of, you're not alone in this, and you can get better, and you will get better.'
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More than half a century has passed, but Patricia Tobin still vividly recalls getting home from work, opening the car door and hearing her mother scream. Inside the house, her little sister Karen lay unconscious on the bathroom floor. It was 1970, and Karen was 6. She'd contracted measles shortly after Easter. Though an early vaccine was available, it wasn't required for school in Miami where they lived. Karen's doctor discussed immunizing the first-grader, but their mother didn't share his sense of urgency. 'It's not that she was against it,' Tobin said. 'She just thought there was time.' Then came a measles outbreak. Karen — whom Tobin described as a 'very endearing, sweet child' who would walk around the house singing — quickly became very sick. The afternoon she collapsed in the bathroom, Tobin, then 19, called the ambulance. Karen never regained consciousness. 'She immediately went into a coma and she died of encephalitis,' said Tobin, who stayed at her bedside in the hospital. 'We never did get to speak to her again.' Today, all states require that children get certain vaccines to attend school. But a growing number of people are making use of exemptions allowed for medical, religious or philosophical reasons. Vanderbilt's Schaffner said fading memories of measles outbreaks were exacerbated by a fraudulent, retracted study claiming a link between the MMR shot and autism. The result? Most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks. 'I'm very upset by how cavalier people are being about the measles,' Tobin said. 'I don't think that they realize how destructive this is.' One of Lora Duguay's earliest memories is lying in a hospital isolation ward with her feverish, paralyzed body packed in ice. She was 3 years old. 'I could only see my parents through a glass window. They were crying and I was screaming my head off,' said Duguay, 68. 'They told my parents I would never walk or move again.' It was 1959, and Duguay, of Clearwater, Fla., had polio. It mostly preyed on children and was one of the most feared diseases in the U.S., experts say, causing some terrified parents to keep children inside and avoid crowds during epidemics. Given polio's visibility, the vaccine against it was widely and enthusiastically welcomed. But the early vaccine that Duguay got was only about 80% to 90% effective. Not enough people were vaccinated or protected yet to stop the virus from spreading. Duguay initially defied her doctors. After intensive treatment and physical therapy, she walked and even ran — albeit with a limp. She got married, raised a son and worked as a medical transcriptionist. But in her early 40s, she noticed she couldn't walk as far as she used to. A doctor confirmed she was in the early stages of post-polio syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder that worsens over time. One morning, she tried to stand up and couldn't move her left leg. After two weeks in a rehab facility, she started painting to stay busy. Eventually, she joined arts organizations and began showing and selling her work. Art 'gives me a sense of purpose,' she said. These days, she can't hold up her arms long enough to create big oil paintings at an easel. So she pulls her wheelchair up to an electric desk to paint on smaller surfaces such as stones and petrified wood. The disease that changed her life twice is no longer a widespread problem in the country. So many children get the vaccine — which is far more effective than earlier versions — that it doesn't just protect individuals but it prevents occasional cases that arrive in the U.S. from spreading further. 'Herd immunity' keeps everyone safe by preventing outbreaks that can sicken the vulnerable. But after three decades of eradication, the U.S. has seen isolated polio outbreaks in recent years, typically in communities with low vaccination rates. Every night, Katie Van Tornhout rubs a plaster cast of a tiny foot, a vestige of the daughter she lost to whooping cough at just 37 days old. Callie Grace was born on Christmas Eve 2009 after Van Tornhout and her husband tried five years for a baby. She arrived six weeks early but healthy. 'She loved to have her feet rubbed,' said the 40-year-old Lakeville, Ind., mother. 'She was this perfect baby.' When Callie turned a month old, she began to cough, prompting a visit to the doctor, who didn't suspect anything serious. By the next night, Callie was doing worse. They went back. In the waiting room, she became blue and limp in Van Tornhout's arms. The medical team whisked her away and beat lightly on her back. She took a deep breath and giggled. Though the giggle was reassuring, the Van Tornhouts went to the ER, where Callie's skin turned blue again. For a while, medical treatment helped. But at one point she started squirming, and medical staff frantically tried to save her. 'Within minutes,' Van Tornhout said, 'she was gone.' Van Tornhout recalled sitting with her husband and their lifeless baby for four hours, 'just talking to her, thinking about what could have been.' Callie's viewing was held on her original due date — the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called to confirm she had pertussis, or whooping cough. She was too young for the Tdap vaccine against it and was exposed to someone who hadn't gotten their booster shot. Today, next to the cast of Callie's foot is an urn with her ashes and a glass curio cabinet filled with mementos including baby shoes. 'My kids to this day will still look up and say, 'Hey, Callie, how are you?'' said Van Tornhout, who has four children and a stepson. 'She's part of all of us every day.' Van Tornhout now advocates for childhood immunization through the nonprofit Vaccinate Your Family. She also shares her story with people she meets, including a pregnant customer who came into the restaurant her family ran saying she didn't want to immunize her baby. She later returned with her vaccinated 4-month-old. 'It's up to us as adults to protect our children — like, that's what a parent's job is,' Van Tornhout said. 'I watched my daughter die from something that was preventable.… You don't want to walk in my shoes.' Ungar writes for the Associated Press.
