I was discharged on a Wednesday. It was a strange feeling. When I entered A&E on February 9 I had no idea I would be staying one night in a hospital let alone 10. Hospitals have always freaked me out. For as long as I can remember they have given me this strange wave of anxiety and unease the moment I have walked through the automatic doors from the world of the healthy into the world of the sick. However, my view, having spent a fair while in one, has certainly changed. A good thing really considering a hospital will be a reasonably constant part of my life for the foreseeable future. I have a lot to be thankful for. Without that institution and without a diagnosis this blog could have been a very different beast.

In one hand I was elated at the thought of going home. I had spent hours of my life alone in a room that was stuffy and outrageously hot. Some serious building work was being undertaken at the hospital and the windows of my room had been sealed shut. For the middle of February it felt more like I was lying in the Mediterranean in July but without the bonus of gaining a tan and with a serious lack of decent scenery. I was also longing for home comforts and decent food. I had only started to eat again a few days before my discharge and the hospital offering was not helping me to regain my appetite.

I was, however, also petrified at the concept of leaving. The nurses were all so kind and gentle and I had grown comfortable in my routine of medication administration. Those nurses were there at a touch of a button and never once turned their back. One nurse, I can’t remember her name now, sat with me for some time one evening when I was in such pain I thought I must have been dying. She made me pant and breathe as if I were suffering contractions until the fire in my belly calmed. She then stayed with me until I had taken the relevant pain killers and anti-spasmodics to keep it at bay and they had started to kick in. I cannot tell you how thankful I was to have that kind of support. The thought of not having a medical professional at my bedside when I returned home was terrifying.

Although I was still very fragile the return to my familiar surroundings certainly helped. I had one week before I would return to Digestive Diseases for a ward follow up which would allow me to meet my assigned consultant and learn more about the disease. By the time I reached that appointment I had already devoured most of the information available to me.

What I had discovered was that Ulcerative Colitis is believed to be an auto-immune disease. Ultimately what this means is that my large intestine has become the battlefield in which the bacteria in my gut are embroiled in some kind of civil war. The problem is, 2 thirds of a person’s immune system resides in this battlefield of good bacteria killing other good bacteria. What results is an inflammation in the lining of the gut wall which leads to painful ulceration and indescribable pain.

Your large intestine is responsible for absorbing the last of the nutrient from whatever mass is left from the small intestine and is also responsible for absorbing any excess liquid before disposing of the waste as faeces. When your gut is inflamed you are no longer able to absorb these nutrients or liquids in the same way which quickly results in a state of malnutrition and dehydration.  Symptomatically you are left with incredible pain, diarrhea, bleeding and the production of excess mucus from your rear end. Attractive combo eh?

Armed with this information the consultant, at my ward follow up, explained to me what my immediate future looked like. I was to remain on oral steroids known as Prednisolone for a further 7 weeks to tackle the internal inflammation and would continue taking a drug called Mesalazine, which I began in hospital. The idea was that this would become my maintenance drug that would help to subdue the intestinal inflammation and hopefully retain remission which is only achieved once the symptoms of the disease are held in check.

This all seemed very positive and suggested a reasonably quick return to some sort of healthy normality. The reality, however, has taken me down a rather bumpy road.