face of an angel butt of a septic tank.. according to my mother!
Um, hey ya'll!
Ok i started getting symptoms of crohn's when i was 17!
i drank and partied, like all teenagers, i did all the stuff mother warned me not to blah blah blah!
i started getting pains every time i ate, it got so bad i would go days just eating loads of tiny bits of food because a big meal would make me nearly faint from the pain. secretly i thought i had cancer, i figured anything this painful has to be the worst disease i could imagine (cancer)
a docter told me i had IBS to go away and take peppermint capsules, drink herbal teas etc... unsurprisingly that didnt work!
I continued to get worsening symptoms, exhausted, no appetite, stomach cramps, period pains that crippled me, and mood swings at my time of the month that were beyond PMT!
In 2000 i weighed just over 6stone i couldnt stand up for long, couldnt cope with food smells so couldnt cook for myself and every thing went through me like a jet wash so i stopped eatting. my relationship broke down and i had to move into a womens hostel as my boyfrind at the time didnt understand or care.
It was while i was at the hostel that i met a lady with crohns disease, she was my key worker Jill Sears. I owe a lot to that beautiful woman!
Jill realised something was wrong but never told me her fears, she would just bring her extra food to work each day, food she knew my tummy would cope with, she kept a close eye on me and got me booked into the local dr. surgery that all the other girls used , the date was 07/01/2000, i'll never forget it!
I had moved away from my home town as the GP's were doing nothing about my illness, i had no diagnosis, and i could tell they were all just bored of my daily visits over a 7 month period.. i remember them giving me treatment for parasites as i had said i kept rare tropical fish... thats how much they were clutching at straws!
My new GP was a young guy, and a bit of a dishy dude too, oh the humiliation!
I started having bloods done, anti spasmodic drugs, steroids
, and mood stablizing drugs prescribed too because quite frankly at that point i was suicidally depressed.
I couldnt wait to see my GP he was always so kind and understanding, he'd let appointments run over so i could ask my questions and tell him my fears.
I started to eat more food, bigger portions and better food types, not the crap student junk all youngsters like to consume with reckless abandon like pot noodles and doughnuts!
My pains got worse but my dr insisted i keep eatting , he was quite strick with that and told me it didnt matter what i ate as long as i ate. He prescribed trammadole for the pain.
Trammadole was a double edged sword, i could cope with the pain of eating but it made me constipated , anxious and jittery.
But i was eatting and gaining weight.
On my 20th birthday i went partying with friends, i drank too much, just glad to be oit with my new boyfriend and all my pals who were pleased i seemed to be o. the mend.
On May 2nd 2000 i went to the loo expecting the normal pebble dash noisy food disembarkment and was horrified to look down and just see blood , lots of blood.. no matter how much i wiped i didnt stop bleeding, i left the bathroom and walked back into my boyfriend , white as a sheet i told him what had happened, bizarrly his mum had crohns....
He rushed me to A&E and we waited 17 hours for me to be assesed and put onto a ward . i was so weak and scared , at 3am the nurse tried to canulate me but failed twice on the third attemp she puckered my vein and gave up. the next day i was seen by a different nurse, the needle went into my arm first time, i had a saline drip set up and was nil by mouth for 3 days, i had a colonoscopy which reveiled what the dr described as cobblestoning, hundreds of ulcers in my transcending, descending, sigmoid colon and also fistula in and around my rectom.
A large section of ulcers had burst and bled, i had metronizadole antibiotics to deal with the infection. more prednisilone steroids, IV fluids and stay in for another 7 days.
Another brief spell of vomiting and the runs in september 2000 put me back into hospital,
This time the dr's realised i was hypersensitive to steroids... BADLY.. i refused surgery, the dr's were not impressed and sort the head psyhciatrists opinion on my mental health. my family interveined. i couldnt cope with a bag yet that was before i was even 21. My family listened , my twin, bless her amazing soul, stood by my decision and i agreed to spend the next 6 weeks visiting a psyhc ward as a day patient to be brought down from the steroid induced high.
Three years of agrophobia insued.
Part 2 pending, i gotta sleep x
Um, hey ya'll!
Ok i started getting symptoms of crohn's when i was 17!
i drank and partied, like all teenagers, i did all the stuff mother warned me not to blah blah blah!
i started getting pains every time i ate, it got so bad i would go days just eating loads of tiny bits of food because a big meal would make me nearly faint from the pain. secretly i thought i had cancer, i figured anything this painful has to be the worst disease i could imagine (cancer)
a docter told me i had IBS to go away and take peppermint capsules, drink herbal teas etc... unsurprisingly that didnt work!
I continued to get worsening symptoms, exhausted, no appetite, stomach cramps, period pains that crippled me, and mood swings at my time of the month that were beyond PMT!
In 2000 i weighed just over 6stone i couldnt stand up for long, couldnt cope with food smells so couldnt cook for myself and every thing went through me like a jet wash so i stopped eatting. my relationship broke down and i had to move into a womens hostel as my boyfrind at the time didnt understand or care.
It was while i was at the hostel that i met a lady with crohns disease, she was my key worker Jill Sears. I owe a lot to that beautiful woman!
Jill realised something was wrong but never told me her fears, she would just bring her extra food to work each day, food she knew my tummy would cope with, she kept a close eye on me and got me booked into the local dr. surgery that all the other girls used , the date was 07/01/2000, i'll never forget it!
I had moved away from my home town as the GP's were doing nothing about my illness, i had no diagnosis, and i could tell they were all just bored of my daily visits over a 7 month period.. i remember them giving me treatment for parasites as i had said i kept rare tropical fish... thats how much they were clutching at straws!
My new GP was a young guy, and a bit of a dishy dude too, oh the humiliation!
I started having bloods done, anti spasmodic drugs, steroids
, and mood stablizing drugs prescribed too because quite frankly at that point i was suicidally depressed.
I couldnt wait to see my GP he was always so kind and understanding, he'd let appointments run over so i could ask my questions and tell him my fears.
I started to eat more food, bigger portions and better food types, not the crap student junk all youngsters like to consume with reckless abandon like pot noodles and doughnuts!
My pains got worse but my dr insisted i keep eatting , he was quite strick with that and told me it didnt matter what i ate as long as i ate. He prescribed trammadole for the pain.
Trammadole was a double edged sword, i could cope with the pain of eating but it made me constipated , anxious and jittery.
But i was eatting and gaining weight.
On my 20th birthday i went partying with friends, i drank too much, just glad to be oit with my new boyfriend and all my pals who were pleased i seemed to be o. the mend.
On May 2nd 2000 i went to the loo expecting the normal pebble dash noisy food disembarkment and was horrified to look down and just see blood , lots of blood.. no matter how much i wiped i didnt stop bleeding, i left the bathroom and walked back into my boyfriend , white as a sheet i told him what had happened, bizarrly his mum had crohns....
He rushed me to A&E and we waited 17 hours for me to be assesed and put onto a ward . i was so weak and scared , at 3am the nurse tried to canulate me but failed twice on the third attemp she puckered my vein and gave up. the next day i was seen by a different nurse, the needle went into my arm first time, i had a saline drip set up and was nil by mouth for 3 days, i had a colonoscopy which reveiled what the dr described as cobblestoning, hundreds of ulcers in my transcending, descending, sigmoid colon and also fistula in and around my rectom.
A large section of ulcers had burst and bled, i had metronizadole antibiotics to deal with the infection. more prednisilone steroids, IV fluids and stay in for another 7 days.
Another brief spell of vomiting and the runs in september 2000 put me back into hospital,
This time the dr's realised i was hypersensitive to steroids... BADLY.. i refused surgery, the dr's were not impressed and sort the head psyhciatrists opinion on my mental health. my family interveined. i couldnt cope with a bag yet that was before i was even 21. My family listened , my twin, bless her amazing soul, stood by my decision and i agreed to spend the next 6 weeks visiting a psyhc ward as a day patient to be brought down from the steroid induced high.
Three years of agrophobia insued.
Part 2 pending, i gotta sleep x
