I am 32 years old. I am married to Paul, and have two beautiful children.
I’d had ‘IBS’ since childhood, I had even been hospitalized a few times due to it but they just dealt with the symptoms by using enemas and pain killers etc. I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in October 2007 whilst 7 months pregnant with my daughter Evangelina, I began bleeding heavily from my rear end, I began having extreme diarrhoea. My GP put my ‘problems’ down to pregnancy! He tried me on fybergel, since I’d said I was in pain he thought I was constipated! Even though I said I had diarrhoea.
The blood was put down to piles, even though I tried to explain it was like having a period from my back end. A few weeks past and my husband rushed me to hospital as I could barely get out of bed without fainting and when I wasn’t on the toilet I was being sick.
I lost 5 pints of blood from my behind, I was in a bad way and hospitalized. Surgery was mentioned then but I fought against it! I was not really told what it entailed, plus I was very scared of my daughter being born early by c-section. Also was worried about what impact the medication was having on my unborn
baby. I spent most of the last 3 months of pregnancy in hospital, I was allowed out for Christmas butwas back in for the new year. I was in hospital when my daughter made an appearance. I didn’t know i was in labour till 5 minutes before the head appeared! Breastfeeding quickly brought my disease into
remission but i was never ‘normal’. I controlled my disease through diet. During this experience apart from being told I had ulcerative colitis or possibly crohns, but was never given any information on what it was.
When I stopped feeding her in Easter 2010 I quickly fell ill again. I changed hospitals, and this was when I learned about crohns and colitis UK, I had a wonderful IBD nurse and was given counseling and also given plenty of information on medication and surgery. I worked my way through a lot of the standard
drugs for UC, whilst also on steroids. The steroids were tapered to see if they made an impact, none did, so the dose was increased again! 13 months later after being worn down I eventually gave in to surgery! I had my colon removed and my ileostomy ‘Squirt’ formed laprascopically on 5th May 2011, at
rake lane hospital by the wonderful Mr Box!
Before being diagnosed I was very sporty. Since surgery Squirt has given me my life back! 6 weeks after surgery I was canoeing, climbing and abseiling! I have been working hard to raise awareness and help people through diagnosis and also through their path to surgery.
You can find my personal website www.thegeordieostomates.webeden.co.uk or follow my new diary here on Stomawise, If there are any points you would like me to cover on living with an Ostomy please feel free to email me at [email protected]
