My Story

So, what exactly happened to me?

In 2012, i began to notice blood on the tissue and in the bowl after i went to passed stool. It went away for a month then came back, so in early october i decided to finally tell my parents. I was taken to a bowel specialist who diagnosed me with proctitis-inflammation of the rectum. He gave me a course of steroid enemas with reduced the inflammation from 6 inches down to 2, and then told me working on my anxiety would remove those last 2 inches. However, this was not the case.

In March/April of 2013, after a full colonoscopy showed a metre of my large bowel was inflamed, i was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis-a chronic inflammatory bowel disease which affected my entire large colon. I passed blood between 10 and 20 times a day which lead me to become very anaemic and fatigued. The urges to go to the loo were uncontrollable and i often had accidents. Life was pretty rough and living a normal life of a 16/17 year old was near impossible. I would leave lessons constantly, leave parties early, rush away from conversations to get to the toilet-the lot. I even had to wear adult diapers for crying out loud!

Now, there is a lot of medication for ulcerative colitis and i went through it all. I ended up on 33 tablets a day which included a huge amount of steroids. The medication messed me up in many ways and unfortunately didn't help my condition at all. I was the one case that the doctors couldn't fix.

The only 'cure' for colitis is surgery; something i was told that i would never need. In November 2013, i was wheeled into theatre and had my large colon (i.e. large intestine) completely removed. I now have an ileostomy-meaning my small intestine comes out of my body and excretes waste into a bag stuck to my tummy. I empty the waste into the toilet approximately 8 times a day. I also have another bag over what is called a mucus fistula-the top of my rectum. My rectum is still inflamed, so bringing it out of my body allows the doctors to apply any medication to the area directly.

I am hoping that my body heels and my rectum becomes clean so that in 2014, i will be able to reverse the operation and, in short, connect the two parts that are out of my body together inside my body-creating an internal pouch. This will mean i go to the loo normally again, however i will go around 8 times a day and it'll always be a pasty liquid.

The job of the large colon is to absorb water and salt, so i need to ensure i drink more than usual and get in sufficient nutrients. Other than that and learning to live with two bags stuck to me and learning about what to do with them, there isn't much to it.

I hope you take the time to read the rest of my blog. Many of the posts explain more about the bags and my feelings about the last 14 months.

Thank you for reading.