Coeliac Disease and Me. Part 1: A Grisly Diagnosis

BODILY FUNCTION WARNING: In this blog post I talk in detail about coeliac disease symptoms and describe the ‘ins and outs’ of coeliac diagnosis. If you’re not mature enough to handle the truth, or you’re eating right now, maybe this blog post isn’t for you.

Back in my teens I used to eat whatever I wanted. Sometimes I’d cram a Big Mac meal, Greggs sausage roll, and Dominoes Mighty Meaty all in one day. I never felt bad about what I was putting in my body. I just felt bad about the amount of money I was spending. It was only at the start of 2010 that I started to question my health. I had been starting to feel constantly tired, bloated and seemed to be going to the toilet more than 3 times a day. But even after giving up junk food for a few weeks, I wasn’t feeling much better.

The first doctor I visited diagnosed me with IBS straight away, but after going home and doing some research I discovered that people with IBS are often misdiagnosed. I went back to get a second opinion from a different doctor, who was immediately concerned and sent me for a blood test to see if I had coeliac disease. If you’re not sure what coeliac disease is, it’s an auto-immune disease that causes sufferers to have an adverse reaction to gluten when it enters their body.

After the blood test came back inconclusive, my doctor explained that it was time for a further test. I’m gonna cut to the chase. The next step was a biopsy that involved having one long bendy camera shoved down my throat and another bendy camera shoved up my bum to see whether my insides had been damaged by gluten. To say I was nervous in the run up to the test would be a serious understatement.

Enema of the state

A few days before my hospital appointment, my doctor handed me an enema pack. He explained how to do it and told me that on the morning of my appointment I should use the kit in my bathroom before heading to the hospital. But of course, when the morning came and I stood there in my bathroom staring at what looked like a bottle of hair dye, I just couldn’t do it.

My doctor had told me that if I couldn’t do it, a nurse would be able to at the hospital. Seeing as I had spent the night wide awake imagining a whole gaggle of doctors, nurses, and medical students crowding round me while I have camera shoved in each end, I thought to myself “what’s one more?” I was already about to wave goodbye to my dignity, so the idea of one nurse squirting a strange fluid up my bum didn’t really seem like that big a deal.

When I arrived at the hospital and explained the situation, a nurse took me into a room with a bed and private bathroom. She was really nice and sympathetic and helped to ease my nerves straight away.

As instructed, I lay on the bed on my side and brought my knees up to my chin, and as she squirted the liquid up my bum, she told me that I’d have to hold it inside me for as long as I could before going to the toilet.

“Here’s something for you to read while you wait,” she said, pointing at a huge pile of gossip magazines. Instantly, alarm bells started to ring. “How long for?” I asked. “Most people manage about 10-15 minutes before emptying their bowels” she explained.

Now let me just say that as someone who has held that stuff inside me for as long as I possibly could, whoever told their nurse that they waited 15 minutes before going to the loo is a liar!

As the nurse left the room, I picked up the first magazine. Katie Price and Jennifer Aniston smugly looked up at me from the cover. Great. Cheers.

I flicked through the pages, not really paying attention to anything I saw. I didn’t have a watch on me and so I sat there counting. But I kept getting distracted and all I could think about is how desperate I was.

It dawned on me that if I suddenly coughed or sneezed while sat on the bed, my life wouldn’t be worth living. So, doubled up in pain, trying to hold my bum cheeks together with one hand and clutching my stomach with my other, I waddled into the toilet. As you can probably imagine, as soon as I plonked my bum on the toilet seat all hell broke loose and it all came gushing out of me like a bad curry.

After a while, I poked my head round the door and into the corridor, my nurse was stood there with one of those wheelie beds, waiting to take me into surgery. I got on the bed and waved bye to my mum and grandma who were sat in the waiting room with a brew each. Bless ’em.

15 Minutes of Fame

It was then that I was taken into a tiny dark room. I felt like I was in some sort of office store cupboard or a photographer’s studio. Surrounded by maybe six people, everything happened very fast. First, I underwent an endoscopy, which involves having a camera inserted into your stomach via your mouth.

Someone sprayed some anaesthetic in my throat numb it and it was then that the first camera was inserted. “Swallow the camera, please” I was told. “I’m trying,” I gagged as tears ran down my face.

It was awful, but while most people would probably have closed their eyes and turned away, I decided to look at the contents of my innards on the big screen. As the camera travelled down my throat and into my stomach, I felt like I was watching someone play some kind of twisted video game.

Once that was removed, it was time for round two. This time it was a Sigmoidoscopy. I had been dreading this part the most, but I was surprised to find that having a camera shoved up my bum was slightly less horrific than having it down my throat.

It may not have hurt my bum all that much, but Jesus Christ it didn’t half hurt my stomach. I think it’s the amount of air they pump inside you that causes the pain though. rather than the actual camera shimmying around inside your body.

I don’t think the whole procedure lasted more than 15 minutes, and once it was all over I was wheeled into what the nurse called “The Windy Ward.” To be honest, my time on The Windy Ward was heaven. I lay there in my bed, surrounded by others who had recently undergone the same thing, thinking to myself “This will make a crackin’ Facebook status tonight.”

Although I didn’t know the other women on the ward, we soon bonded since we all had one thing in common. Every single one of us had been pumped full of air that was now fighting to escape our bottoms. Obviously, I found the whole thing hilarious and every time a trump emerged from one of our bums, I’d lie there, eyes closed, giggling to myself.

That’s the end of Part 1. In Part 2: Living Gluten Free, I talk about how my life has changed since I found out I have coeliac disease. I look at telling my friends, annoying gluten free fad diets, and how I didn’t take coeliac seriously for a long time.

 

Photo credits: Bakery