My family and I had moved house a couple of months prior to starting this blog and that goes some way to explaining why there is so very little written! The house is a sieve!!! There was a leak in my daughter’s en-suite and I reported it in September, October, December and January. the damp was terrible, my oldest daughter had repeated ear and chest infection and in February it was finally fixed, my lucky landlord was saved quite a lot of money and damage by the fact that I had a dehumidifier running 24/7 for 5 months in there ... my daughters had to move out of their room and into the playroom come hallway as there was nowhere else for them to sleep due to my stepsons maternal grandmother dying and him not being able to use his bed usually set up for him in the playroom as his sisters were there so was crashing in the lounge ... have they refunded me anything from my rent for not dealing with my complaint when it was reported? or for the 5 months of dehumidifier running? or have they even bothered to follow up the report of another leak 2 weeks ago that has now spread from outside to inside and no chance of that even being anything more than looked at this week ... that would be a no ... the microwave blew up when we moved it, no problem, I’d rather not use one, then at new year the dishwasher broke down ... the guy that came to fit the part that they didn’t know they needed/realised/whoops/let’s see again/oh no we can’t/its ok we have the part now came out and got scared by freshly woken up me and then found he didn’t have the right part ... now (it being afternoon and everyone has so much better things to do) I’m sat waiting for washing machine engineer. It broke over a month ago, they came, they said X, they booked in for repair, then cancelled repair on morning as they *had booked enough time* then fixed it only to have it leak the contents of machine over the kitchen floor. It’s over a month it’s been broken now and the laundrette love me!
But the main problem is my pain ... I sound like I’m 82 with crumbling bones ... I’m not, I’m nearly 39 and I have a bowel condition ... I think ... well I did have ... then they operated and now ... now, I’m just horrible. I had chronic constipation (i.e. for anything up to a month) for years ... from when I was maybe 10? I don’t know, don’t really remember that much. all I can say for sure is that I had cramping problems for years, that I would tell the gp who called me fat (I had just had a baby, had pelvis and back problems) and blamed my laziness for my lack of bowel movements, just for the record I also have an accessory navicular which can make load bearing, walking and running, especially when overweight, very painful. Also blamed over the years was my poor diet (I eat well) not drinking enough water (even when drinking 4-5 litres a day) some people is like that, get used to it. It is hard to live with having to birth one faecal matter from one’s body on a more than monthly basis. then 3 years ago I demanded to be referred to someone to help, I got into with a hospital gp at my local hospital (no choose and book I hasten to add) and she sent me for a blood test, a colonoscopy (which both came back clear) and then a defecating proctogram which found I had a severe intussusception and decent which was closing off my bowel each time I tried to evacuate. Hence the pain, hence the constipation, hence the birthing. So I was referred ... no, not for surgery but the physio who couldn't help me, in the meantime I also had problems with my gallbladder which was sending me slightly mental and because i wasn't suffering at that very moment in time and i was under a surgeon for the other, the doctors receptionist decided i didn't need to be seen by my gp. 8 months after dx'ing intussusception I was operated on. It was a horrifying and nightmarish ordeal, it is written up, should anyone wish to read "my arse laid bare" just ask.
Since seven months before my first surgery (July 2010) I have had no further tests done on my bowel. One blood test was done prior to my gallbladder surgery (August 2010) and an ecg.
My gallbladder has been removed and I can thankfully report, no further problems there. The bowel has been a different matter. I returned post op to see the surgeon to whom I explained that although the constipation has been relieved MOSTLY, the pain is now much more frequent, as are my bowel movements. From a day of movement in maybe 5-30 days (usually been 5 and 10 but has been as long as 30 on more than 5 occasions in 5 years) to movements every day or 2 (has been less frequent recently due to extreme nausea and anxiety) and pretty much constant discomfort or pain. The pain is usually located in the lower left quadrant of my torso but lower right is sometimes affected as is the middle and across the top of my abdomen. I know I also have a GURD but that is a different pain to the bowel cramping. That said I’m not always sure it is bowel cramps ... but what would I know??? I mentioned this to my surgeon as he'd mentioned the possibility of sending me the way of a gyni as a next step; he dismissed it and said he was sure this would work but maybe not until a year or son’s time. I had a further follow up with one of the surgeon’s minions who told me to learn to live with it and face the fact that they cannot help me and referred me back to physio. By this time I had given up work (started a new business after the first round of surgery) as I was unable to cope, I was in far too much pain and burnt out.
In the late March I was surprised to receive a letter telling me how my surgeon didn’t feel he had anything more to offer me so referred me onto another colorectal blokey, he suggested some of my pain was due to staples sticking into my rectum from the first surgery maybe irritating me and making things very much worse and that he would remove these first and see where that took us. He seemed to understand I was exhausted and totally fed up of this, that I was depressed I was loosing more and more of what little of a life outside my bathroom I had. On the morning of my surgery I found a letter from first surgeon to 2nd telling him how I was such a difficult patient and couldn’t be helped, my expectations too high, I had been aggressive. I wrote on it that I would be following this matter up in due course and left it for the surgeon. that was to be the last I would hear of him, 5 months later he finally couldn’t get out of giving me a follow up appointment (his secretary said I had been *overlooked*) and told me that he couldn't help me, there may be a doc in London or Southampton who could, but as he was a 2nd opinion (and he opinion backed up the first surgeon, I expect too much (they said they could stop my problem and help me lead a normal (norman?) life and I haven’t got that, should I be satisfied with that?) he said that I scared him, I knew more than him and that intimidated him. I actually (foolishly) thought he had understood that as a woman with a functioning mind I would be looking at trying to find out as much as I could myself, I wasn’t getting anything anywhere else. I have developed issues with food over the years as I had been told much of my problems were down to what and when I ate ... when it never was ... I had a dysfunction and the problems are not down to my lifestyle or body type. Those issues colour my daily life, eating in the morning is very difficult, it’s like food comes with a siren screaming "the fat fuck is eating the fat fuck is eating" I can really be craving something ... anything ... during the night it was fried bread, oh lordy I do <3 fried bread, I wanted to get some today from the cafe, I was going to have bacon and beans with it, maybe an egg (for the omegas, don’t really like eggs) and a grilled tomato for the vit c, I only ate 3 choclits and a cheese and onion sandwich yesterday, nothing the day before and 1/4 of black forest gateaux and a small portion of potato salad the day before, I am hungry. I cannot face the food though, even if I were to order it or make it, I’d not be able to swallow; it would feel like a beach ball in my mouth. This is how I have lost a stone in a month. And despite being unable to do much exercise as just walking about sets of the cramping to levels I cannot cope with let alone organised activities, I am no longer overweight or obese. It’s been a long hard road, I’m flabby and untoned and unable to get there and I’m sad about it. and hungry, really fooking hungry!
Another day i shall tell you about my gp and why i cannot change practices.
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