My symptoms started over 17 years ago after the birth of my first child, I was out walking her in the pram when all of a sudden, I urgently needed to go to the toilet. This would be the first of many times where I wouldn't make it to a toilet in time and would have an accident.

This kept happening, so I decided to make a GP appointment, where I was told it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and stress, due to the volatile relationship I was in at the time. Going to the doctors soon became a reoccurring theme, only to be told every time the same thing each time, that it was just IBS.

Over the year my symptoms became worse. I went to a new GP, who referred me for a gastroscopy and colonoscopy. This is where they found I had biliary gastritis and serrated polyposis syndrome which is a very rare pre-cancerous polyp syndrome. I routinely had the polyps removed through colonoscopy every 6-12 months. During all of this time, I was still passing blood in my stool, and had I what noticed as flare-ups regularly, but I still felt that nobody listened to me.

I continued to go to the toilet countless times a day and I started to feel immense guilt that we couldn't enjoy nice family days out as a family such as going swimming or down to the beach, all because of my fear of not making it to the toilet in time. I would have so many accidents all of the time, that I was terrified of it happening in front of people I knew.  

I was working frontline for the ambulance service when my symptoms became out of control, every patients house we were going in to, care home, hospital or any setting with a toilet; I'd run straight to their bathroom and pass so much blood. I was at the peak of a flare up when I received some devastating news and I ran to a bathroom and haemorrhaged a large amount of blood. I called my consultant who told me to immediately head to A&E. Long story short, I had numerous tests, scans and scopes and was told that I was being admitted. This is when the consultant told me I had one of the worst cases of Colitis he had ever seen.  

I then started an whole array of medications, and after 4.5 months of treatment, I was called in to hospital to be told that my body had rejected them all and there was no option but to operate or else I could die in a matter of weeks. I then went on to have a sub total colectomy with an end ileostomy or 'stoma' - named Mona. Soon after this surgery I had to have the full proctectomy surgery and have my rectum and anus removed due to Diversional Colitis.  

Since going through all of this and feeling so alone and isolated, I set up my Instagram account @monastoma_and_me, which I used to document my journey and raise as much awareness as I can, as well as providing help and support for those going through the same. I am really proud of doing this as it's been massively out of my comfort zone, but I get so many positive messages from people telling me how much I've helped them or their family members. It's grown from a few people following me to now a few thousand. I have on a number of occasions set myself challenges to raise money for Crohn's & Colitis UK, I am back in the gym, I go paddle boarding & I even climbed Mount Snowdon a few months post-surgery.