How One Woman Transformed Her C. diff Pain Into Purpose
Key takeaways:
Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) is a bacterium that causes debilitating infections in the colon.
Maryann Webb endured the painful effects of C. diff for 3 years. A fecal microbiota transplant changed her life.
In 2024, Maryann received an advocacy award for her work raising awareness about C. diff.
For 3 difficult years, Maryann Webb, 57, of Felton, Delaware, lived with the relentless symptoms of Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff. It’s a condition that many people describe as unbearable.
The C. diff bacterium infects the colon and can cause severe symptoms, including debilitating diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, and constant, painful cramping. In some cases, it leads to complications like dehydration, malnutrition, and colon inflammation.
These symptoms can disrupt daily life, prevent people from working or socializing, and create a profound sense of isolation and helplessness.
C. diff affects half a million people in the U.S. each year. In some cases, it can be fatal.
The condition turned Maryann’s life upside down, but it also inspired her to become an advocate. She wants to protect others from the despair and lack of knowledge she experienced. In November 2024, she received an advocacy award from the Peggy Lillis Foundation, an organization dedicated to C. diff education and advocacy.
The dehumanizing reality of C. diff
Maryann’s ordeal with C. diff began unexpectedly. In 2015, she was admitted to the hospital for diverticulitis and treated with intravenous antibiotics. About 3 weeks later, she began to have severe abdominal pain, cramping, extreme diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting.
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“If I put anything in my mouth to eat, it was like a chute,” says Maryann, who works in regulatory affairs for dietary ingredients and supplements. “It was immediately expelled from my body in both directions.”
Maryann says this loss of control over her body was one of the most dehumanizing aspects of the disease.
“It’s very isolating. It’s very painful. It’s very humiliating,” Maryann says.
The first test for C. diff came back negative. Without an answer, she was prescribed more antibiotics and sent home.
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She couldn’t work, and most days, just getting out of bed was a struggle.
When another test months later confirmed C. diff, Maryann was immediately secluded in a room with what she describes as “crime scene”-like warnings on the door. She couldn’t have visitors, adding to her isolation. Even at home, she had to avoid contact with her husband and daughter.
“I was constantly cleaning, just terrified that I was going to make my family sick,” she says.
Another health crisis was lurking
C. diff drained Maryann so severely that she missed other routine health screenings. At her doctor’s urging, she went for a mammogram and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose a double mastectomy with reconstruction while still battling C. diff.
But having both breasts removed “was nothing compared to C. diff,” she says. She makes that comparison not to diminish what women with double mastectomies go through but to help people understand the tremendous mental and physical toll C. diff. takes.
A life-changing treatment and a new purpose
After 3 years of unsuccessful antibiotic treatments, Maryann’s doctors suggested a fecal microbiota transplant in 2019. They implanted healthy donor stool in her colon, which helped restore balance in her gut microbiome.
“About 8 hours after the treatment, I started to feel better,” she says. “I wish it had been offered to me in the beginning. It would have given me back 3 years of my life that I lost with my daughter and my husband.”
In 2024, the American Gastroenterological Association updated its guidelines to recommend fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for some people experiencing recurrent C. diff infections.
Spreading a message of hope
Maryann began her advocacy work in 2019 and says she hopes her outreach helps others feel understood. She wishes she had been told that the disease has a 30% recurrence rate — and that washing hands with soap and water, not hand sanitizer, is essential to prevent its spread.
She also emphasizes the need for mental healthcare early in treatment. She was only offered support after her FMT and needed it much earlier.
Maryann, now a Peggy Lillis Foundation board member, said in accepting her advocacy award in November 2024, “What I can do now is to be present with those who are battling C. diff, hold their hand — literally or figuratively — and just BE. For me, this is the root and impetus for patient advocacy. It takes a toll and some skill to pack away my own trauma to help others by sharing my experience, but it is a toll worth paying. I do it as a service to others out of deep love. In my own little way, I just want to help someone and hurt no one.”
Most of all, she wants others with C. diff to know that it’s possible to get better.
“Here I am,” Maryann says. “There’s hope you can get here, too.”
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