Pickleball champion Rob Nunnery, 41, who endured years of perianal Crohn’s disease and life‑changing surgery leaving him with a permanent colostomy, flew one‑way to South Africa
It had been only two months since surgeons removed his rectum and permanently sewed his anus shut but Rob Nunnery decided he had nothing to lose and bought himself a one-way flight to South Africa.
He was going to see a woman he had met on Instagram. The 41-year-old admits he had no idea what his future looked like as he boarded the jet.
But he was ready to take a gamble, having spent four years battling a form of Crohn’s disease that left him living in constant pain, undergoing multiple surgeries, and ultimately facing life-changing surgery. Rob had already lost his marriage, his health and much of the life he once knew to Crohn’s disease.
What started as a painful abscess in 2022 quickly spiralled into a medical nightmare. In May 2023, specialists at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, in the US, finally diagnosed him with perianal Crohn’s disease.
Unlike the more familiar forms of Crohn’s disease that affect the digestive tract, Rob’s condition presented through recurring abscesses, fistulas and severe infections around the anus and rectum. Doctors tried everything they could.
And Rob tried all the medications, including Remicade, Rinvoq and Skyrizi. Nothing worked. By February 2025, surgeons performed a colostomy in the hope that diverting waste away from the diseased area would finally allow his body to heal.
For a short time, there was hope. Then the drainage returned, new fistulas formed and the fevers came back.
At the same time, Rob was still competing professionally as a top pickleball player. He has won 19 professional pickleball titles since 2022, including the Dubai Open in 2025 just 10 weeks after his colostomy surgery.
He was also part of the team that won the first Major League Pickleball Championship in 2021. But away from the court, he was struggling.
“At that point I’d spent years trying to fix something that couldn’t be fixed,” he says. “The emotional toll of dealing with the fistula drainage and pain was huge.
“You’re constantly wondering if people can smell it, see it or notice it. You start feeling like you’re failing because everything you’re trying and everything the doctors are telling you to do just isn’t working.”
By early 2026, doctors gave him a stark choice. The best chance of improving his quality of life was a complete proctectomy.
Within two weeks, Rob had to come to terms with the reality that surgeons would permanently remove his rectum and sew his anus shut. “I had two weeks to wrap my head around removing my rectum permanently and getting a permanent colostomy,” he says.
He said: “I’m scared. I’m relieved.
“But mostly I’m just ready to stop surviving and hopefully get back to living.” In January 2026, surgeons at Mayo Clinic performed the operation.
Recovery proved even harder than he expected. The surgical wounds healed, but years of damaged tissue and fistulas still needed to recover from the inside out.
As if the surgery itself wasn’t enough, Rob suffered another frightening setback just two weeks later when an artery was severed during a routine procedure. The complication caused severe bleeding and required an emergency pelvic angiogram to stop it.
Speaking after the operation, Rob was brutally honest about the reality of what had happened. “My rectum is gone forever, my anus has been permanently sewn shut,” he said on social media at the time.
“There’s no putting back the rectum, there’s no reversal. But for the first time in years, I don’t have to worry about fistulas, bleeding, drainage and everything that came with them.”
Today, Rob lives with a permanent colostomy. The end of his colon forms a stoma on his abdomen, allowing waste to leave his body through an ostomy bag.
He regularly answers questions from curious followers online. “People keep asking where the poop goes now that I don’t have an anus,” he says.
“Everything that used to come out the back now comes out the front into a bag. I don’t feel it happening, I can’t control when it comes out.
“It looks crazy, it is different, but that’s my life now.” His openness has resonated with millions on TikTok and Instagram.
Rob documented every stage of his recovery publicly, generating more than 30 million views in the first month alone. Then came an unexpected message.
On March 4, a woman named Danelle contacted him on Instagram after reading a story about him in a South African publication. Danelle Louden, it turned out, had survived bone cancer years earlier and understood what it was like to live with chronic pain.
She was also helping care for her grandmother, who has dementia. The pair began talking, then video calling and then talking every single day.
By March 30, just two months after surgery, Rob made a decision that surprised even himself. That morning, he attended a follow-up appointment at Mayo Clinic.
That afternoon, he boarded a flight to South Africa. His ostomy was only eight weeks old and his surgical wound had not fully healed.
One suitcase contained clothes. The other was packed with ostomy supplies.
He did not evenbuy a return ticket. “I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last few years,” he says.
“I’ve been in India, Europe, Asia, all over the United States chasing pickleball and trying to find answers. And if I’m honest, I was tired.”
The flight itself became another challenge. During severe turbulence, his ostomy bag suddenly began filling rapidly.
Despite passengers being ordered to remain seated, he repeatedly rushed to the aircraft lavatory to avoid a potentially disastrous leak. But when he finally landed and saw Danelle waiting for him, everything changed.
“She put her hand on my back and gave it a rub,” he says. “She kept it there all the way to the car. It felt like she’d been doing it my entire life.
“It just felt like home.” The couple now live together and recently signed a 12-month lease on a home in George, in South Africa’s Western Cape.
Although recovery remains ongoing, Rob says the difference is remarkable. For the first time in four years, the deep fistula pain that once dominated every aspect of his life has disappeared.
Rob recently completed a month of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, continues managing nerve pain and is rebuilding his strength. He is also developing Flexara Health, a hydration company inspired by his own medical fight while exploring whether he can return to elite competition.
For the first time in years, though, his focus is no longer on surviving. “There’s a lot changing in my life right now,” he says.
“Some of it is challenging, some of it is exciting, and some of it feels like the beginning of something completely new. For the first time in a long time, I’m genuinely looking forward to what’s ahead.”
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