The Beginning of my Journey
February 2022, the month it all begun and it all changed. A diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis and the start of a long road that, despite both ups and downs, was going to bring me to the strongest and healthiest place of my life.
I was familiar with the world of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, as my brother was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in January 2014. A terrifying time, where none of us really knew what was going on, and we watched the happy, healthy boy drop weight daily and look, in the bleakest way, like a walking corpse. He was a complete warrior, battling through hideous months of tests and diets, and still managing to come out with top GCSE results. Looking back, I was pretty oblivious to what the disease itself meant. I knew the basics, and I knew he was taking medication but I was away at University and, it felt like a thing that my parents and him were dealing with. He slowly recovered his strength and health, and things felt like they were getting back to normal. In 2016 myself, my sister and my Dad undertook a charity run, to raise money for funding an injection trial for the disease, which helped more people learn what he had been going through.
My 20s were, as most people can relate too, were pretty turbulent. I had spent the first half in a relationship, which came to the end just after my 25th birthday. This was the first of a few major turning points for me I think. I finally allowed myself to be set free from the person I was trying to be since school, and was able to start thinking for myself. Tricky times continued, and looking back I was probably never at full health, I suffered with anxiety, depressive periods, frequent headaches and awful period pains.
Fast forward too January 2022, just after New Year, I remember first noticing blood when I went to the loo, along with loose stools. This didn’t worry me too much in the beginning, as it was post Christmas, I felt perhaps I had overindulged, and I remember having had a spicy bloody Mary that day and thinking that could have just caused my tummy some issues. It is funny but those next few weeks felt like a bit of a blur. The blood continued, and I called my GP to explain. As I am sure many have experienced, they throw all sorts of scary words out, with Bowel Cancer being mentioned in that first phone call which was terrifying. At the same time, he was also saying he imagined it was IBS. I of course mentioned my brother and his condition, which helped enormously. This meant that they asked me to bring a stool test into the surgery. These are not fun, and I have now done more than I can count and they do not get easier but the results for that came back pretty conclusively - there were high levels of inflammation and so I was fastracked through for a colonoscopy. My experience with the NHS through this whole journey has been phenomenal. There have been the odd hiccup, as with anything in life, but I went from first reporting symptoms to a diagnosis within two months, which for a lot of conditions, including IBDs, is pretty remarkable.
Anyway, the Colonoscopy was scheduled, and the particularly grim bit around this is that you have to empty your bowels ahead of time. This means that for the 12 hours or so beforehand, you are taking a liquid continuously for a few hours, which effectively works as a laxative. I have never been so grateful to live alone, and be single, than I was then! To be able to be in my flat, which I loved and felt comfortable in, made a huge difference. Slightly awkward telling work that I was having to finish early that day to ‘prep’ for my procedure, but luckily very few questions were asked. The next day rolled around and I was at the hospital for a Colonoscopy - these are not fun - they are not painful but they feel extremely weird. I asked my brother to pick me up afterwards, as I knew he would know exactly what I needed. During the procedure they told me it was pretty likely Ulcerative Colitis - I was lucky in that I knew vaguely what this was, due to my brother, but I was quite shocked at how casually they announced it. Saying that, I had fully braced myself for being told I had bowel cancer…so this was a big relief. And so begun the next chapter navigating life with a chronic disease.
