IDEAS
Intestinal Disease Education and Awareness Society
Join IDEAS Movement
Vancouver, Canada
An opportunity to meet great people raise awareness about living with IBD, an ostomy, and participate in great events.
Rob Hill completed all of the Seven Summits While Living With Crohn’s and an ostomy Strated his “No Guts Know Glory” campaign
Membership to IDEAS
Membership to IDEAS Intestinal Disease Education and Awareness Society
Memberships are $10. Membership in the society gets you:
Meet Rob Hill
Until 1994, Rob Hill had never been sick a day in his life.
The 23-year-old amateur runner and adventurer, who completed his first marathon in the second grade, kept a rigorous training schedule.
Then, wracked by debilitating diarrhea, cramping, and pain, Rob was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease with ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel diseases.
Over the next year and a half, Rob’s condition worsened. His weight plummeted — from 185 pounds to his lightest recorded weight of 105 — and it became clear that his large intestine needed to be removed. “When it came down to losing my colon or losing my life, it wasn’t a hard decision to make,” he says.
It wasn’t until he was sick that he learned an aunt also had suffered from Crohn’s — a fact never shared with family members at the time. As far as Rob was concerned, “Life with an ostomy was my second chance and I was not going to waste it.”
Eight years after his life-changing surgery, Rob decided to challenge the social stigma surrounding intestinal diseases and living with an ostomy.
Featured Trips
Machu Picchu Peru
Great Wall of China
Mount Kilimanjaro
West Coast Trail
Iceland
Personal Goal
Rob Hill began a personal quest to become the first Crohn’s patient and ostomate to climb the Seven Summits,
IDEAS
Intestinal Disease Education and Awareness Society (IDEAS), Rob has set an example that an ostomy is not as much about removing an internal organ as it is about second chances and the opportunity to pursue your dreams.
Breaking Down Barriers
Today, Rob Hill continues to break down barriers for people living with intestinal diseases, letting them know that “it’s okay to talk about these conditions and not something to hide behind.
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Testimonials
After following my friend Clinton Shard’s trek up Mount Kilimanjaro in September 2009, I felt inspired and started to think about whether or not I could ever do something that extreme.
But I never thought I’d get a chance to see if I could. When I first heard that I was being considered to join the Everest trek, I was thrilled.
I was jumping around my room with excitement. But I had no idea then how much this experience would forever change my life. We haven’t even left yet, but I’ve already done so many things I never thought I would have”
I was pretty tired once he reached the base camp because the team had set out before dawn to watch the sunrise over Kala Pathar, a 400-meter hill that apparently offers one the best view of Mount Everest.
“It felt great to finally be there and take in the whole atmosphere. It was the highest I had ever slept. I was feeling the altitude in a breathing sense.”
Bigger.Faster.Stronger
Rob Hill Ideas
Robert Hills Crohns Disease Story
Robert Hills Crohns Disease Story climbed the 7th tallest mountains to raise awareness of intestinal diseases, Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Colorectal Cancer
Healthy Gut Microbes
Gut microbes found in feces avoid triggering immune reactions that could lead to conditions like inflammatory bowel disease
What Crohns Disease?
Crohn’s disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus
