It was a fine Sunday morning, I had just got up and out of bed to walk the dog, when I suddenly felt an urgent need to go to the toilet. This was a little weird as I’d already been for a wee but I like needed to go. I rushed quickly to the downstairs bathroom and DEAR GOD what happened there was atrocious. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. As the dog scratched at the bathroom door trying to get in to see me, I was left with the wondering of what on earth was going on. There was blood where there should not be blood and I think understandably, I started to freak out a little. Being the person that I am, I attributed these weird symptoms with everything that I could possibly think of, the Thai Green Curry I had heated up the night beforehand, the rubbish that I had eaten over the past two weeks, anything. I’d get over it, I told myself confident as I cleaned myself up and took the dog for a walk. Oh how naïve I was…
As the day went on my stomach started to hurt as well, this was a Sunday though, not a very helpful day in the medical profession and so I just took some painkillers and found some immodium in the house and cracked on. Monday came and I was still having what I am now affectionately calling “toilet attacks”. The name is incredibly apt because the whole thing feels like a battle. I needed to call my doctor for other reasons (hayfever is getting the better of me this year…) and so while I was on the call I spoke to them about what had been happening. They reassured me it was probably just a stomach bug but to come into the surgery the next day for a blood test, just to see what was going on.
I should add into this that I currently live with my partner (more about him later) and my dog (Archie, he’s very cute). My partner works away for some of the time and at this point he was away. I also do have a family history of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
As my condition continued to get worse (more frequent toilet attacks and generally being a little bit scared to eat for what the next toilet attack would look like, I went into the doctors. Now I am writing this in the time of COVID-19, so a trip to the doctors was no mean feat, they were not letting people in willingly, let’s just say that. As I pressed on the bell for a receptionist to come and see me in full face guard I was, it is honest to say, feeling a little off kilter. They asked me to put a mask on my face and wait for the nurse. I had a load of bloods taken with the promise that they would be back within a couple of days to tell me what was wrong. I had to go home and do a stool sample but the general consensus was a case of gastroenteritis.
Now if I am being totally honest, over the next few days it all gets a bit complicated. My symptoms got worse and worse, I was waking up at 2:30am to go to the toilet, in a lot of pain and generally not doing so well. I called 111 a number of times looking for advice, I was advised over the next few days at different points to do a number of things, these included; going to A&E within the hour to be seen, speak to my doctor in the morning for more painkillers. I was getting beside myself, I was prescribed co-codamol for the pain, and told to take Mebeverine for the cramping that I was getting, told to keep my fluids up and eat a dry bland diet. There were points over the next few days where I would be awake at 2:30am crying on the toilet.
In the middle of all this, my partner came home from his work and now had to suffer along with me. It was tough because it was embarrassing and I wasn’t being a very nice person either, I was in so much pain.
I was admitted to hospital at one point and we both were so relieved. We thought that I was going to be getting treatment and get better. No such luck, I was discharged within hours, told I had gastroenteritis, take some paracetamol and codeine (separately this time) as well as Buscopan and it would go away within 24 hours. (I was rattling like a pill bottle with all the medication that I was taking at this point!)
In total I ended up with 3 ambulances being sent to my house over the period of the week because I was literally crying on the toilet and writhing around in pain. One ambulance pulled up that my blood sugars had dropped (I wasn’t able to keep anything inside for more than about an hour).
There got to one night where I was particularly bad, I knew I was not right. So another call to 111 and listening to the talk of coronavirus again, another ambulance was sent. At this point I was in so much pain I couldn’t even walk downstairs. I was told that they couldn’t give me anything apart from gas and air in the ambulance but that would involve another trip to the hospital where I was likely to be discharged again as I only had gastroenteritis. I opted for the gas and air, grabbed my now pre-packed rucksack and went to the hospital.
This was just the beginning of the next part of the journey.
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