It’s not all about poo – five things about stomas and IBD this #WorldIBDDay

Last year over 21,000 colostomy bags were prescribed across Wales.

Take a second to think about that….21,000.

Now, that’s a lot of people who’ve had major bowel surgery in a small nation.

According to Google (the source of all things) 3.063 million people live in Wales, so no matter how you look at it there are a lot of people living here who are getting on with life with a stoma.

I have boxes of appliances (a posh word for bags) in my little flat – and so many lotions and potions for my stoma I have a dedicated bookcase thing for them all – I simply can’t picture what 21,000 bags looks like.

Yes, it cost £4,189,877.07 , but as someone with a permanent stoma I can’t live without my bag…..I’m not sure the same can be said for the £5,105,411 spent dispensing paracetamol in the last 365 days.

Today is World IBD Day, and in the spirit of awareness raising I thought I would take a few minutes to destroy some myths about living with IBD and a stoma is like, by answering a few of those enjoying questions I tend to get thrown my way which really really really wind me up!

I’m not going to try and explain to you exactly what Inflammatory Bowel Disease is, as Crohn’s and Colitis UK do a much better job at it…see photo below.

Since I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, well YONKS ago, awareness of IBD has gone through the roof.

But some of the things people say to me – even friends – show that there is still a lot of stigma and confusion out there…..and at times a lot of blame is laid at sufferers doors.

So here are my top FIVE myth busters – basically all the things people say to me or have been dying to ask me for years, and have the bubbled over and burst out in a moment of total honesty after a few drinks….

Well, you don’t look sick?

Why thank you very much, that’s very nice of you to say……..

Argh! This is one of those statements which has followed me around my whole life….and it is a massive lie as I often looked horrendously sick.

Not all illnesses show, FACT, and not all disabilities mean being in a wheelchair, FACT. Some chronic conditions are invisible – but that doesn’t mean we are making it up.

Unless I wore a badge or had a sign over my head you wouldn’t know I had ulcerative colitis, and unless I wear a bikini (or you are lucky/unlucky enough to see me naked) you wouldn’t know I had an ostomy.

It’s always really upset me when people think I am making my illness up. Why the hell would I? Who would pretend to have Ulcerative Colitis: It’s not exactly glamorous.

It’s humiliating being questioned and getting dirty looks when you use a disabled bathroom, being stopped at airport security to have your ostomy bag checked for drugs, or running around like a maniac looking for a toilet before you have an accident.

I’ve spent a lot of my life in an awful lot of pain, in hospital, and then recovering. I spent most of my teenage years living a daily battle, and I’ve got the scars to show for it.

But I shouldn’t have to life my t-shirt to show them to you for you to believe me…..my illness is not Santa.

Didn’t you cause your Ulcerative Colitis through eating junk?

Give me a break! No, absolutely, and unequivocally I did not.

Who the bloody hell knows what causes Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease….but I can tell you one thing, me eating some sweets 100% didn’t make me ill.

I once appeared on the telly to chat about UC and was asked about this….my reaction was not good.

I was brought up on a healthy diet of home-cooked food, no take aways, in a house hold of non-smokers. I was too young to drink, and I was a studious school girl who ran for her cross-country team and played in a local brass band.

Even if i’d stuffed my face with rubbish and drank etc I wouldn’t deserve this….no one would.

At the end of the day, I will be the first to admit that my diet since I’ve been an adult has been far from perfect. I probably drink too much wine, and eat too many sweets (I have cut down massively), but I mostly live off spinach, fish and pasta.

But at the end of the day, I’m not injecting heroin into my eyeballs am I?

Can you plug up your stoma? Do you have to open a valve to poop?

This may sound silly, but I’ve been asked these things.

The answer to both is NO. The first one is dangerous, the second is just a bit confusing.

I still poo, but just in a different way. While others poo though their bum (put in a crude way) I poo in a bag….It may sound gross, but it’s not dirty or unhygienic. Well, no more so then the normal way, and probably better as I can see what I’m doing.

The bag isn’t changed every time I go to the loo, it opens at the bottom and is emptied…simple.

And it never stops, I can’t switch it off. Which is why I’m still sometimes caught off guard and have to run like mad to find the nearest loo.

Why are you drinking WINE and eating sweets if you are so ill?

Well deserved glass of wine

Well why not? And to be honest after my operation I’ve never been so well, and can do the majority of things, well, within reason.

I do get a little bit angry when people try to make out that I shouldn’t be eating something – while stuffing their own face with crisps, cake, chips and chocolate. Just let me get on with it, I don’t tell you what to eat.

I’m lactose intolerant – so i don’t eat cheese, cake, chocolate, and a whole array of yummy things unless I get my hands on dairy free ones – I also don’t eat spicy food, and rarely eat fast food.

I mostly live off spinach, eggs, potatoes, pasta and loads of salad….which my stoma doesn’t really enjoy but I eat anyway.

Also, it’s a fact that sweets help me and marshmallows and jelly babies are actually listed as medication for when I have bad output days with my stoma. Yes, I often stuff my face with them despite that – but I go to the gym at least four times a week and I walk everywhere.

The fact is that you only have one life. For years I had to analyse every little thing I ate, and had people constantly watching me. I still do to an extent, and it drives me mad as I am a fitness fanatic, and I often have people who don’t look after themselves at all having a go at me…

Are you anorexic, why aren’t you eating anything?

Like many women I focus a little bit too much on my weight. I’ve previously spoken about my feelings about it and the problems of my ever shifting size while living with IBD.

The picture of me above was when I was painfully thin after my first op.

But I’m not anorexic, and it hurts when people say things about my weight, comment on my eating habits, or asked me why I wasn’t eating when I was scared of putting things into my body because I was in so much pain.

You can read the full post here.

A battle of skin and bones: the ever changing size of IBD #7daysofIBD

IBD, it’s just a toilet issue isn’t it?

No, while one of the symptoms can be going to the toilet a lot, it can be the other symptoms which can be the most crippling.

The illness goes way beyond the toilet stall, and everyone who has IBD tends to be different.

My case before my surgery was extreame, with severe blood loss, non stop toilet visits, horrendous pain, crippling fatigue, weight loss, and even at one point my hair started coming out.

I also now have bad joint pain, and osteophrosis from years of steriod treatment.

Anyway, enough with this depressing stuff…Happy World IBD Day

To end this I want to say, IBD makes me different on the inside from most people as I have an illness which makes my body do horrible and painful things.

I also don’t have a large bowel and my bum is sewn up.

But I am a normal person, who can do pretty much everything everyone else can. I just need some medication and a bit of TLC to help me stay healthy, and to look after my stoma.

Happy World IBD day. Let’s keep sharing awareness together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 7: Never give up hope – What I’ve learnt from #7daysofIBD

This week has been all about raising awareness of what IBD is. I hope you’ve learnt something – I certainly have.

What always amazes me about the IBD community is how open, honest and brave the people who suffer from Crohn’s and Colitis are.

Back when I first became ill Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis were relatively unknown, they were what Dr Christian Jessen would have described ‘an embarrassing illness’.

Talking about toilets was frowned upon – unless that is you were a lad who could fart really loudly, and then that was, well, your crowning glory.

Social media has it’s downsides (believe me I know) but for Crohn’s and Colitis it has been such a breath of fresh air.

The illness has gone from something people were frightened of talking about, hidden behind the toilet door, to having this massive community on twitter, Facebook, blogs and youtube full of people giving each other support and advice…and hope.

People proudly share their stories of bravery and their remarkable battles to go on to do amazing things, most of which I could only dream of: the ultra marathons; the world record attempts – even just wearing a bikini with a stoma.

The world is unrecognisable from the one in which the teenage me hid in the school toilets, tucking my feet up the side of the cubicle, and trying to be quiet as I tried to curl up in shame.

Now every single day celebrities, politicians and sport stars, and just incredible every day people are sharing their stories in local and national press….it’s remarkable.

It feels like a week doesn’t go by without IBD being in the tabloids, sometimes for weird ‘junk causes Crohn’s’ claims, but mostly for stories which make me want to punch the air and shout ‘you go girlfriend’ – now that would raise an eyebrow in the Welsh Assembly lobby.

Yes I wish people were still more understanding: especially when they tut at me for using the disabled loo –  if my can’t wait card works in Italy why do I sometimes need to pretend to be pregnant to skip the toilet queue when my bag is about to explode (sorry my little rant).

I remember as a teen hiding in the loos, trying to hide my frightening illness, wasting away with no idea what was happening to me – I was so weirded out by what was happening I would rather have died than told anyone.

I wonder what it would be like now for me, in a world of being able to google for help and advice.

But there is no point in looking back in that wishful way, I’m just so happy  things are on the way up for IBD: yes, there is still no cure, it is still a horrific illness, but awareness and understanding is growing on fundraiser, stoma bag selfie, and bare tummy at a time.

No one with IBD should ever feel alone again – get online, learn to laugh at those horrible moments with others, cry, smile, giggle, grumble and vent,  and just support each other.

No one should be defined by an illness – don’t let it rule you, share your experiences and show it you’re the boss.

Day 5: A battle of skin and bones: the ever changing size of IBD #7daysofIBD

I’ve always had an ongoing battle with my weight, let’s put that on record.

I have bad body confidence issues, and I rarely realise quite how tiny I am until I see pictures – basically I simply don’t see what other people see when they look at me.

I’m currently the happiest I have ever been with my weight. My training at the gym and healthy-ish eating regime has allowed me to get into the right-side-of-normal weight bracket for the first time since before my illness began.

But even now that I’m happy and well I still think people judge me.

I know when people look at me they think I’m too thin, skinny, anorexic even, but this is me – I am tiny, and it’s my body after all.

have a sexy stoma bag!!

Me & Winnie at Gay Pride in Bristol – just a little bit burnt

My comfizz underwear – amazing support but not sexy!!

Bend and stretch 🙂

Wow did I really try to eat all that?

Just after second op

gym

There is always so much said in the media about tiny people: we get a lot of bad press, and I guess I’m a bit of a hypocrite because when I look at thin girls I also jump to the same conclusions as everyone else.

But the fact of the matter is, while being skin and bone isn’t a good look, some people are just thin – either because we are built that way, or we have an illness you can’t see.

I have Ulcerative Colitis, and when I was model-skinny it was because my bowel and anything I put in my mouth was literally falling out into the toilet – I was tiny because I was chronically ill, in agonising pain and feeling like I was going to die.

I 100% did not appreciate someone coming up to me and saying, “that girl needs a good feed” or, even worse, “I wish I was as thin as you” – you really don’t, believe me!

I also didn’t appreciate people watching me eat ( know some did it out of concern) – or even worst commenting on how many times I went to the loo which was a major part of my condition.

I guess what’s always made all this worse is when the cake is passed round I can’t eat it – I might be lactose intolerant but the fact I turn it down seems to shout that I have an eating disorder.

Either way there is an assumption made (even by me shamefully) that we choose to be this size – and the looks and comments always hit you right where it hurts.

Over the years my body shape has morphed, with it being unrecognisable from year to year either through severe illness or healing drugs.

Looking back at pictures I hardly recognise the person at times…the moon faced girl, with a giant lollypop head (from steroids) balancing on a skeletal body; the bloated frame of a fresher enjoying booze at uni; and the painfully thin, stripped to her ribs teenager covered in bruises and wires.

I now know how terrifying it must have been for my family to see their daughter wasting away, especially in the months before they diagnosed me.

I’ve been so thin it has actually hurt.

Have you had that? 

It’s not just not a good look, it is actually painful to be that tiny. I’m talking about when your own ribs and spine stick out so much they cause you pain – when you can’t lie down because you’re so bony.

Yes, I’m not going to lie, I’m obsessed with my body. 110% obsessed with having a good, fit, healthy, and well, decent sized body, I love the gym and I eat well – but I will not weigh myself.

That’s because I am actually obsessed with my weight. 

After years of being forced to monitor it non-stop to check every ounce and kg vanishing from me down the toilet, it’s become ingrained in me to the point of an almost obsession, a bit like checking my poo.

So I only weigh myself when I have to (like when I am in hospital). And I now check my body through how comfortable I feel in my own skin, and that pair of jeans – it has got to a stage where I can say that I am frightened of loosing weight, and want to stay as I am.

Yes,  90% of all of my body image issues, battle with weight, and my constant collar bone is due to my battle with IBD – it can strip me of 2 stone in just a few weeks, it is frightening how fast I waste away.

But I will put this on the record, probably 10% of how tiny I am is down to the fact that I grew up thinking being thin was the way forward (due to magazines and pop stars) and even now, as an adult, adverts and movies tell me I need to be slender to be hot.

If it was up to me I would be more curvy, more athletic, and a bit more womanly – but I will never be that shape, my body simply isn’t made that way, so i work hard to look after what I’ve got.

I have my imperfections, and being small has taken it’s toll on my body and battered it over the years. I have Ulcerative Colitis, I have a stoma, and I have skin conditions and well have had osteoporosis since i was 24.

But for now I am healthy, and I am happy with how I am – even if I do struggle to get jeans to fit, and get endlessly frustrated by the lack of my size in the shops.

I would just love it if people would have thought over the years, when I was struggling to walk, vomiting and running back and forth to the loo, to think it might be insensitive before telling me to fatten up; calling me anorexic; or saying “i wish i was that thin”.

I was living on the edge of hospitalisation and in chronic pain – if my daughter is ever that thin I will be panicking – so no you don’t wish you were that thin!

Just a thought!

 

Day 4: Working with crohn’s and colitis #7days0fIBD

Why are people with IBD drawn to stressful jobs?

It’s true, in all my years in and out of hospital I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who has a chronic condition (and is in work) who has a job which doesn’t go hand in hand with massive amounts of stress.

I’m a political reporter – enough said.

While everyone who has Crohn’s or Colitis has different triggers for their illness, the most common exasperator seems to be stress, but we seem to be drawn to jobs that have the highest levels of pressure possible.

I have always found I’m in a catch 22 when it comes to working with my illness: I’m a total work-a-holic and I both thrive under pressure and crumble.

Over the years I’ve pushed myself to the limit when it comes to my job, it’s almost been like I’ve been trying to make up for the fact that I’ve been so ill – like I think I’ve got something to prove.

I’ve filed copy from hospital beds and taken my work to the toilet when things have got bad – and I’ve worked all night when the pain has made it impossible to sleep.

The fatigue is crippling and that’s what hits you the most.

But I’ve had my days where work has been impossible, and I now realise that my point proving was hugely detrimental to both my health, probably making me iller than ever, and ultimatly my sanity.

Now as someone who is pretty much well all the time (thanks to my operation) I look back on how I was with horror.

Working around the clock was my way of trying to block out my illness, it was in a way a distraction. But in reality every day I worked until 1am, or stayed up reading reports all night pushed me closer towards the surgeons knife.

It is easy to look back and think I was stupid, but at the end of the day I also have to admit that I love being a journalist, and that’s not an easy job to do when you’re rushing to the loo all the time and in crohnic pain.

I have the upmost respect and admiration for anyone who can hold down a job while living in chronic pain – and I also get why people can’t work.

I was only ever off sick when I simply couldn’t move: when things got really bad my editor sent me home for falling asleep at my desk.

Sometimes I wish I’d slowed down a bit and realised it was ok to ring up work, give in and have a sick day – but I guess I was too stubborn for that.

Day 2: Free wine that’s all I have to say on the matter #7daysofIBD #7daysofstoma

Me at the office

I’ll keep this short, mostly because I’ve got a stinking hangover.

It’s day three, but I’m writing about day 2 of my blog a day for IBD awareness week, and I’m a year older.

All I can say is that I can’t handle a free bar – that’s not really to do with my IBD, more that I am simply not good with wine.

I’ve known that I’m a lightweight for years, but not drinking and journalism don’t go hand in hand, oh and I do love a good glass of cold white wine.

I want to put one thing on the record: just because I have Ulcerative Colitis it doesn’t mean I can’t have a good time.

I’m allowed to drink, eat the occasional bag of chips and let my hair down – I just have to be a little bit more careful than the average joe as I can get into sticky situations a lot more quickly.

To be honest with you that’s not really down to my illness, it’s more that I’m tiny weeny and often forget I can’t drink a lot of wine despite my best efforts.

It was one of my editors that once told me: “Rach you eat like a tiny little bird – you should drink like one too”.

I ignored those words of wisdom – sometimes they come back to me and echo in my brain in a Yoda like way when I’m getting in my third large glass.

At times when I am ill I often cut out drinking all together. I can and have stopped drinking for months on end. Stopping the booze does help a fair amount, and it is nice to go weeks without waking up once with a head like cotton wool.

But we live and we learn.

Winnie is not a fan of cheap wine, she goes green and sickly looking, and often has a right paddy. To be honest the only time she ever chooses to leak is when I’m hungover and it is literally the last thing I want to deal with.

Anyway, today I’m 28, and I have woken up feeling it.

 

Day one – red, green and other weird coloured poop #7daysofIBD #7daysofstoma

Seeing red in your ostomy bag is a frightening experience.

Spotting blood where it isn’t meant to be is horrifying for anyone (if you’ve not experienced it I hope you never do), but after 14 years of Ulcerative Colitis seeing red is enough to make my world crumble.

It is the tipping point, the moment I have to stop kidding myself that the agonising pain will vanish (even though i know it never will) and the horrible realisation that I will have to drag myself to hospital.

When I say spotting blood it is more like a massacre – not that I want to frighten any of you.

Anyway that’s beside the point. For the past year I’ve lived without red in my stools – well until I eat something like tomato soup, and then I nearly always forget I’ve eaten it and freak out.

Some foods do weird and wonderful things to my stoma output and turn it bizarre colours which would startle any right minded person and have you running to the doctors whispering “why is my poop bright purple? What exotic disease have I got?”

You probably wouldn’t stop to think you might have eaten beetroot – but there again most people don’t examine their poo for weird qualities like people with IBD have drummed in them to do.

Today I forgot I’d eaten tomato soup, hence I had a little heart jumping moment (like when I see a large spider lurking in the bathroom) when I saw the bright red colour of my stoma bag contents.

As a now slightly seasoned ostomate I’ve taken to taking a little moment to think while I’m sat on the loo – I stop and say ‘Rach what have you eaten that might have caused this…’, before I allow myself to properly freak out that my illness is back or has morphed into Crohn’s disease.

It’s a good job I did – the memory of the tomato soup came flooding back and I visibly relaxed.

morning

gym

dinner

The first time my output went green I went mental…what the hell, what did it mean, I hadn’t even eaten anything green!

Green is pretty normal for me: I adore spinach even if my stoma does not.

But for most green is a sign that what you are eating simply isn’t being absorbed – it means you’re having too much fibre, or your food is going through you. This happens to me a lot, as I insist on eating the foods my digestive system doesn’t like, such as: rocket, spinach, cucumbers – which do from time to time cause me a lot of pain through blockages.

I remember being totally freaked out though the day my output went bright green – I mean pretty much luminous – a consequence of some very horrible cocktails the night before.

Bad colourings in cocktails have also led to slightly purple output, bright red and a slightly blue tint – always a really horrendous experience when you’re hungover and confused enough without thinking your dying.

In other news I went to the gym, got drenched posting letters and almost got lifted off my feet on the way home – thanks lovely Cardiff weather.

 

Petition for better Welsh hospital food must now be looked at by Assembly #Crohns #IBD #ostomy

The Welsh Assembly will be looking at hospital food in Wales – as more than ten people have signed it.

I’m delighted, but to give it more weight I would love hundreds if not thousands of people to get involved and make sure our voice is not ignored.

Otherwise they could really dismiss it as my insane ramblings when I was starving and full of drugs.

I am hoping Crohn’s and Colitis UK, Ostomy Lifestyle, Campaign for Better Hospital Food (England), and allergy, vegan, vegetarian, lactose free, gluten free etc and health bloggers, campaigners and patients will get behind me.

Today I used my column in the Daily Post (in North Wales) to share my experiences with food in hospitals with my lactose intolerance, ulcerative colitis and having an ostomy bag.

Click here to read the column online:

I am hoping to hand in the petition alongside a bundle of people’s own experiences to the Assembly Members on the steps of the Senedd next month.

To do that I need your help.

The petition runs until December 4. I would love for anyone who has ever eaten in a Welsh hospital (or had a relative or friend who has) and wants to see improvements to sign the petition – the more people who sign it the better.

I think this will push the Welsh Government to seriously look at standards – if it is just my experience it could be easily dismissed as a party pooper and groaning fussy idiot after all.

I also can’t rock up with one sheet of A4 – that would be pathetic. I want to take a lorry to lift the petition into the arms of the waiting politician.

Please sign the petition here if you want to see changes.

Here is the link if you want to share it

https://www.assembly.wales/en/gethome/e-petitions/Pages/petitiondetail.aspx?PetitionID=887

Also please share your pictures, stories, experiences of hospital food in Wales – good, bad or indifferent.

I want to build up a picture, or a report, of evidence I can submit with the petition.

The more I have the better.

I need your help to do that.

Please tweet me @TheStomaBagLady or @DailyPostRachel. email me rsl.flint@googlemail.com or go to to my Facebook page and share your story

Alternatively fill in this form which will be sent to me.

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Your Welsh hospital food experience

Twitter address and area you live in

Do you have photos of the food?

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Campaign for better hospital food in Wales begins – join the fight

Today my official campaign to stop the slop finally got off the ground.

As you all know I’ve been banging on and on and on about NHS food for years – until a few weeks ago, starved and delirious, I finally snapped.

My mission is simple but will need a lot of support.

I want the Welsh Government to look at the food the Welsh NHS feed their patients, investigate and see if it is up to scratch.

Then I want them to give staff the right support and facilities to feed people (including tailoring meals for people with certain conditons and allergies) what they need to help them get better – instead of banging their heads against a brick wall and taking away full plates of food.

I know I will come under fire over this campaign – I am brutally honest about my negative experiences – but if it sparks improvements people can hurl rubbish my way and I will happily duck.

This is not about undermining the hard work of the amazing doctors, nurses and catering staff in the NHS.

I admire them greatly; they’ve saved my life; held my hand; stayed with me when I am frightened and gone above and beyond their jobs to keep me alive and strong over my many years of chronic illness.

They brought me back to life as a baby, and also gave me back my life from the grip of Ulcerative Colitis after so many years – for all of this I will never ever be able to repay them.

I am literally in awe of the NHS and the staff that work for them – but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see improvements.

This campaign I hope will help them to do their jobs more easily and without having to endlessly deal with hungry, angry patients, who are not getting better because they are not eating properly.

My petition has appeared on the Welsh Assembly website and I need you all to sign it (if you want to of course).

Ludicrously I only need to get 10 signatures for it to be considered by the committee – which could mean I could ask get 10 people to agree AMs personally have to give free lollipops to donkeys (and if it is devolved) they would have to talk about it.

Please help me with my campaign, hopefully it can make just a little bit of difference for the greater good. I will not stop banging on about this until something is done – and I know you all would like me to shut up!

Petition: Food in Welsh hospitals

In the meantime please share your experiences, pictures of your Welsh hospital food, and anything which might help to build up evidence in this campaign.

Please send to @thestomabaglady or visit my facebook page to share your story.

 

 

 

 

 

Nursing is still a caring profession why else would you do it?

“Nursing used to be such a caring profession” – if I had a pound for every time I heard that this past week I’d have been discharged rich.

It’s a fact that no one likes being in hospital, you have to be a right weirdo if you do.

It’s also a fact that with the sleepless nights, lack of air, flourescent lighting, stuffiness and people pooping and throwing up all around you, you’re not going to feel well, and probably won’t get better until you are discharged and back in your own home.

Hospitals after all are weird places.

They are places where the sick are sent to be cured, or have their pain eased; places where relatives wait for bad and good news; places of joy and sorrow; places of hope and loss; and places of birth and death.

I have, in my main years as an on-off inmate, waited in hospital beds and seen all of these things (apart from birth). I have spent endless sleepless nights thinking – that’s really all you can do when you are in, wait and think – about what everything is about, what you still want to achieve, and what life is for.

I know, all very deep stuff for me.

On Monday I left hospital.

The night before I left there was a quiet chaos on the ward. Nurses running backwards and forwards, a family who had been quietly waiting for days racing towards a side room, the rush of feet hurrying to get there in time. A lady, someone’s mother, wife, loved one, died.

I hadn’t met this lady, I don’t know anything about her, who she was, what she had done, anything, but her death affected me.

More than that the reaction of the staff affected me.

During my five-day stay in the Heath Hospital the woman in the bed opposite me must have moaned on about the nursing staff so often their ears must have been bleeding.

She banged on and on about how bad they were at their jobs, how uncaring they were, and how it was better in the old days.

Now, I’ve moaned about nurses in the past, I’ve got pissed off and angry (especially when one threw my teddy away). I’ve got frustrated about being told what to do, and for all I know I also moaned out of frustration at the lack of action during my stay this past week.

I mostly moaned about the food, as i pretty much wasted away in the five days i was in. It might sound like a silly thing to grumble about not being fed (the NHS always struggles with my lactose intolerance, I may as well walk in and say I only eat caviar and sushi – I will probably do a blog on this at a later date as it is beyond my comprehension)

If I took my hunger out on the staff I apologise – I was wrong, as was the lady in the bed opposite.

The night the lady in the bed down the hall died, a nurse came to take the needle out of my arm, her eyes were red and she looked as if she had been crying.

Some might call that unprofessional, I call that being human and being caring.

The next day a student nurse, who told me he was a music journalist who realised he wanted to do something that made a difference to people’s lives, personally took me to the consultant and thrust me under their noses to make sure I was seen.

He went the extra mile to make sure I could be discharged after days of waiting around.

In every profession there are coasters, grumpy people, lazy bums and bad eggs. They exist in nursing, teaching, politics, finance, marketing, journalism, anything you can think of really – apart from perhaps lion keeping.

I’ve run into my fair share in the medical profession, but mostly what I’ve seen in my 15 years in and out of hospitals are caring, hardworking staff battling to do the best they can under immense pressure and with limited resources.

The problem is working in a hospital is like working in a goldfish bowl. As a patient we are fed up, ill, ratty, and bored, and so we are demanding and critical. When you are ill you don’t care that someone is stressed or stretched you just want them to take care of you (which is understandable), you can be quick to judge, and say horrible things induced by pain, frustration and exhaustion.

At the end of the day everyone has their off days, it’s just in most professions it doesn’t mean life and death.

I will be the first to hold my hand up and say I’ve said some things which no doubt a poor nurse has heard – all I can say is they are made of sterner stuff than me.

But at the end of the day nursing is an incredible profession. I take my hat off to the men and women who cope with us all, and put up with people screaming, scratching, hitting, crying, and being down right obnoxious when mostly they are good people simply trying to help.

So that lady (and me on occasions) is wrong – nursing is still for caring people, why would you put yourself through that if not?

Little me, my ostomy, and Ulcerative Colitis versus the Cardiff Half Marathon – I came out on top!

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I can’t walk down stairs without wanting to scream out in pain right now.

Weirdly after running a half marathon at the weekend on Monday I felt surprisingly ok – but I was a little bit distracted.

Apparently the not being able to sit down comes in after two days and for the first time ever I can’t stop eating everything in sight.

Anyway, even though the pain is getting just a little bit on my nerves now, I am I beyond proud with what I achieved on Sunday.

I ran a whole half marathon without stopping, walking or really slowing down – yes me!

I finished the race in 2hr 14min and 11 seconds (those seconds make all the difference) which is awesome compared to the 3hrs it took all those years ago when I did the Great North Run at the height of an Ulcerative Colitis flare.

Funnily enough about half way through the Cardiff race on Sunday I started to really need a wee (well I thought I did). It got to the stage where I thought I might burst, but there was not a chance in hell I was going to stop and queue for a loo if it wasn’t my ostomy that was the problem.

I stubbornly carried on determined not to let needing the loo ruin my time – I mean after a life totally ruled by toilets I was not going to give a queue for the lavatory the satisfaction of ruining my pace.

Somehow despite a few hills (which I ashamedly and rather vocally swore at) and this desperation I ran the whole thing and even sprinted at the end, crossing the finish with a few fist pumps as I couldn’t believe I had done it.

What amazed me the most is how well behaved Winnie was. She didn’t start kicking off until about three hours later, when I was obviously ridiculously dehydrated and starving – it is often easy to forget I should drink more than the average person (and that doesn’t include wine).

Thank you to everyone who sponsored me, encouraged me on the way, and tried to make me see the challenge was possible – it was all so worth it and Crohn’s and Colitis have bit more cash from my pain.

Anyway, I appear to have caught the running bug. My mirror is slowly getting decorated with medals and I’m collecting running t-shirts at a bit of an alarming speed.

I might not look pretty when I run but I am starting to love it. I get time to think, get fit and often see stunning sunrises and sunsets. I also like the respect runners have for each other – a little bit like the hello walkers in the country feel obliged to give each other, like it’s part of the highway code or something.

So I’ve decided this time next year I’m going to do that marathon I’ve always talked about. I’m thinking the Chester marathon so I can see friends and family and have a bit of a celebration after.

I am the fittest and healthiest I have ever been in my life. To be honest I need to grab this chance while I can, as I’ve learnt how my life can flip when I put things off, and where better place to train than Cardiff Bay.

I know I need to work up to it, so my plan is to do two or three more 10k races and another half to prepare and then go for the big one. Don’t worry I won’t ask for sponsorship for them all, but the plan is by the end to have raised £1,000 for Crohn’s and to raise awareness of Ostomy Aid on the way.

People think I’m crazy, but you only live once – and I want to be able to say I ran a marathon!