After graduating from high school in Texas, Kenny Honnas was recruited by the football team at Wheaton College. Honnas was thrilled; it had always been a dream of his to play football in college.
On the very first day of football training camp, Honnas began to notice the symptoms. He started having diarrhea, but brushed it off simply as a sign of “stress.” The diarrhea continued though, and continuously got worse. By the fifth week of training, Honnas “found [him]self running as fast as [he] could to find a restroom and not making it in time.” He began to hide out in his room, only leaving for practice.
It was only when Honnas’ bowel movements “turned into straight blood” that he finally chose to tell his parents and seek medical attention.
The doctors initially prescribed him medication to treat his bloody bowel symptoms, but just two days later, Honnas had to be rushed to the hospital for losing a liter of blood. That was when the doctors finally diagnosed Honnas with ulcerative colitis.
Over the next two weeks, Honnas remained in the hospital to restore his hemoglobin levels and receive four blood transfusions to make up for his lost blood. The doctors thankfully didn’t have to remove his colon to stop the excessive bleeding, but Honnas lost 30 pounds over the course of his recovery.
When the doctors discharged Honnas, they didn’t particularly emphasize any life change.
Honnas, however, decided to take his life into his own hands and did research online, looking for ways to manage and treat ulcerative colitis at home. That was when he discovered that adopting a vegan diet could alleviate and improve the symptoms of the disease.
Just weeks after his hospital stay, Honnas was already noticing a difference in his body from his new, no meat, no dairy diet. “A month in people would never know I even had a disease. I was strong, fit, and healthy. I put on well over ten pounds of muscle and I even went back to Wheaton and played a second season of football.
Now that he’s returned to being fully healthy and happy, Honnas has “no intentions of going back. It is difficult to put into words what it feels like to regain everything you thought was lost once.”
