Jay Pacitti
Jay Pacitti has been living with Crohn's disease for more than 10 years. Jay became ill in 1998 and despite multiple tests and an emergency surgery to remove his appendix, doctors were unable to properly diagnose him. After his symptoms returned, Jay was finally diagnosed in December 1999 with a serious case of Crohn's. Three months later, surgeons removed 16 inches of his severely damaged small and large intestine along with infected abdominal tissue.
Before his diagnosis, Jay had never heard of Crohn's disease. He was shocked to learn that more than 1.4 million Americans have either Crohn's or ulcerative colitis - and that small children as young as 3 months old can have the most severe cases.
As the founder of Get Your Guts in Gear, Inc., Jay has spent the last 6½ years working to empower people affected by Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and ostomy surgery. He has witnessed first-hand how Crohn's and colitis have torn apart lives and families - learning over and over again how lucky he is to be in good health despite his disease.
Jay's work has focused on building awareness and community and empowering others to discover their true ability - both because and in spite of their diseases.
Todd Colitti
Todd Colitti is a 10-year colon cancer survivor. When he was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in 1999 at age 35, doctors gave him a 50% chance of surviving surgery to remove the tumors. When Todd woke after surgery in the ICU, missing parts of both his liver and colon, he was overjoyed to be alive - and optimistic. The odds, however, were not in his favor. His doctor still warned that the cancer would likely resurface and gave him a 5% chance of surviving 1 year.
But Todd pressed on. He kept up hope and always believed that he would beat his cancer. At his 1-year check-up, he showed no signs of disease. Unfortunately, the statistics predicted that he would relapse and not survive more than 5 years. His doctors continued to be only cautiously optimistic.
But the years went by and the check-ups went from quarterly to biyearly to yearly. Todd, defying all odds, celebrated his tenth anniversary of being a survivor on November 29, 2009.
Todd is a lieutenant in the Waterbury, Connecticut fire department. He was featured in the The Colon Club's 2009 Colondar, an annual calendar geared toward raising awareness of colorectal cancer and encouraging screenings. Todd plans to spread his message of hope and perseverance not only to his contacts within the colorectal cancer community, but also to the firefighting community across the nation.