My story starts over a decade ago, whilst I was in my second year at Aberystwyth University. I don’t seem to remember it being a particularly stressful time, it was much like a lot of what university is. Then one day, I woke to my stomach in total agony, to the point that I could barely sit myself up in bed. I managed to get to the doctors, and they put the pain down to trapped wind, and advised that I got plenty of rest. A week later and I’d barely eaten or gone to the bathroom, and I’d lost over a stone. The entire time I had this searing pain in my stomach. 

The next seven years passed relatively uneventfully health wise. I’d have bouts of diarrhoea, and my stomach was certainly more sensitive, but none of it ever made me think that there was anything more sinister going on. Years passed, and in 2017 whilst in the bathroom at work, I looked down and saw bright red in the toilet bowl. I instantly felt faint as my Nan had recently passed away from suspected bowel cancer and I knew that passing blood was a symptom. I was told I had haemorrhoids and was booked into surgery to have a haemorrhoidectomy. For one reason or another the operation was cancelled twice.

In late 2019 I was going through a stressful time in my life, both personally and in work. I soon started having regular diarrhoea and starting to see blood in the toilet bowl. Like previously, the initial diagnosis was haemorrhoids and I was given medication, but this only exacerbated the symptoms. Eventually, I had an examination at the hospital.

The same evening of the examination, I had a call from my doctor. They said I was being referred to Hospital on a cancer diagnosis pathway, as they had seen something concerning. The word ‘cancer’ hit me like a truck.  The closer the appointment came, the more stressed I became. 

At the appointment the consultant told me it was unlikely to be cancer and that it was likely to just be “a little colitis”. After a holiday with my girlfriend, I had a flexible Sigmoidoscopy to investigate my health further. A few days after it, I was working from home as I could no longer cope running up and down the corridor to the bathroom, and had come close to an accident on more than one occasion. Worried, I contacted my GP but was advised it was likely something I ate. I was having to get up multiple times a night, and not being able to do anything other than sit in a chair in front of the fire. I was constantly fighting nausea and attacks of excruciating pain in my stomach.

My girlfriend was very worried and urged me to get help from the doctors again. The doctors told me to visit A&E. Whilst going round the hospital for the various tests I was accompanied by a nurse, who when I quizzed her if having an escort was normal, assured me it was only because she didn’t want us to get lost with the places I had to go.  Whilst I was in X-ray my girlfriend asked the nurse again, and she said that due to the state that I was in, she was worried I was going to pass out in a corridor, and if this happened she wanted someone to be there with me straight away. 

I was told there by a gastroenterologist consultant that it was likely Colitis, and they were going to treat it as such. I was put on a course of intravenous steroids four times a day, which would carry on for four days, to get the inflammation in my bowel under control. In addition, I was given a saline drip to replenish everything I hadn’t been getting for over a week. Within eight hours of getting into hospital I felt a new man, and at this point I realised how desperately ill I’d been. 

I stayed in hospital until Friday, and was back in work a week later. They gave me a reducing course of steroids and being an anti-inflammatory called Salofalk, which I still take.

Looking back now, I realise how many opportunities I missed to get a diagnosis sooner. How all too often I was given a diagnosis which it was unlikely to be. 

I’m not ashamed to talk about having Ulcerative Colitis, in fact in see it as my duty to tell people about it and raise awareness, so hopefully people in similar conditions will learn from my experience and seek help sooner. 

There shouldn’t be any shame in talking about poo, everyone does it. And doctors are trained to talk about it with you, they won’t laugh or judge you. 

It’s not the end of my journey, in fact it was only the beginning and I’ve been in worse states of health, both physically and mentally at a couple of points since the diagnosis. But that’s a story for another time.