How it began – Is anybody listening to me???

So going back months, years even, I have had a sensitive stomach … lactose intolerant aka eat pizza at home or with friends and family only 😂 Having a close relationship with the bathroom each morning, lessening as the day goes on with the exception of meal times. It was always just the way I am 🤷‍♀️

In May 2022, I flew out for a regular trip to Lund in Sweden, I am not a huge fan of Swedish cuisine … if you can’t identify what meat it was when it was alive, (aka Wild Meat) I shall not be eating it, thank you very much! As I was away for a week, I pack smart, I’m talking cuppa soups, super noodles, hit up the local shop for bagels, pastries, snacks etc so Miss Leanne is all set for the official Swedish luncheon … lunch is very important in Sweden 🇸🇪 I have the skills to get by!

By the second day, I am getting a tight spasming in pain in my stomach from top to bottom and left to right (and I mean pain, I am being ripped clean in half pain, lasts a few seconds then goes away and comes back in a few hours) … am I eating enough? Eats more food to make sure I’m just not that hungry.

By third day, these pains are closer and closer together, when the pain hits I am struggling to stand but I am on an event and I will get through. Day four as day three and then fly home on day five.

Back home, it is time to call a Doctor … LOL! If UK based you will get the ‘joke’ of contacting a doctor. Luckily for me, I have company Private Healthcare so was able to make a telephone appointment with a GP the next day who suggested a list of blood tests and things to rule out through my NHS GP and then he would refer me a private Gastrologist.

Blood tests came back an absolute mess, white blood count high, haemoglobin low – if it should be high it was low, if it should be low it was high … I can see all of this on the blood tests section on my NHS app and don’t have a clue what any of it means but have to wait 24 hours to speak to a GP to be told to go to The Hospital Emergency Department urgently 🚨

The Great A&E wait … I am not even going to go into this except to say, 12 hours sat on a waiting room floor (too many patients, too few chairs), watching people scream in agony around you is not the one and is not the doing of the many NHS workers who are busting their behinds to make a bad situation less bad! I knew they are special but this whole experience has reconfirmed everything to me!!!!

Doctors tell me I have an stomach infection, I am given two lots of antibiotics and paracetamol and told to call 111 in 3 days in the pain has not come away. I take my drugs and I get the hell out of there … A&E is not a place for the faint hearted, it is a cold and scary world that I hoped to not have to see again for a long time!

3 days pass … first 2 days stay the same, day 3 feels gooooood! For the first time in weeks, I get up, get showered/dressed, take the dog on a gentle stroll in the woods, eat real (but careful) food and actually feel like a semi human.

Then day 4 – up all night writhing around in pain, screaming into a pillow, do I wake the house or not? I probably just need a few days more on antibiotics, why keep everyone else up the whole night? Misery loves company but that just seemed mean! By morning the pain had not stopped, tried to call GP – LOL! Called 111, ‘your call is very important to us, we will call you back in c. 6hours’. Luckily by this time I was that tired, I passed out on the worlds most uncomfortable sofa! 💤

111 call back, ask all the questions, where is the pain? Do you have any fever? … no one would ever except my whole stomach and would narrowing in on one part and head off in a direction … this day we landed on a path to acid reflux, over the counter medicines for IBS, plus paracetamol as well as taking it easy on what I was eating as I may have while feeling better the day before over stretched my angry stomach.

I give the above a good go … I am awake all night, every night writhing around in pain, trying to not wake everyone else, I sleep most of the days, managing to force myself to eat little and often, one weetabix, one toast, drinking lots of water and trying my best to help myself with my old friend Paracetamol on hand to help me out.

I speak to 111 and GP surgery 7 times throughout the two weeks.

On the Saturday night I was at an out of ours GP surgery, listening to the Platinum Jubilee Party at the Palace being blasted out from the church next door. To the sounds of Bocelli I am examined by a doctor who also suggests Gaviscon and similar treatments, does a urine sample, checks temp – all good to him.

I am getting seriously pissed off now. I am in so much pain, all of the time, I cannot sleep and I am like a small child when I cannot sleep – sulky, emotional, dramatic but keep in mind I knew I was sick and no one was listening.

No one was doing anything as my body was being ripped apart.

One day, I sat down and wrote out all of my finances, where my money is, what savings, death in service for work, what I owed on my car, requested a settlement figure to pay off the car, wrote down passwords and instructions for where all of my money should go/be spent, no excessive funerals/churches, split X between my nibblings Jaxon and Millie when they each reach 25 years old etc … I felt like I was dying and I could see myself getting skinnier and sicker looking by the day but I was told to watch what I was eating (nothing it hurt too much) and take IBS medication and paracetamol 💊

Another crap night, I decided to get up at 2am and move to the sofa, I nap in the daytime there, maybe I could bamboozle myself …

No such luck … morning comes, I manage a small piece of toast and then rest on the sofa for an hour.

After the hour, I take a deep breath … call GP – LOL and then call 111 … but this time was different, Did she ask a different question or did I answer differently? I said the pain was over my whole stomach into my ribs (I am sure I have phrased this way previously) but the call handler quickly informed me that the ribs are my chest there by I have chest pain, so she made me an appointment to see the Urgent GP at the hospital.

Mother came along with me as I was now running on 0 with no energy and less will power. I could have actually hugged this GP and cried as she told me I looked like shit 😂 She tested my urine -high infection, temperature – 39.6, blood pressure- low. GP was on the phone using words like Sepsis and Urgent and I have never felt more relaxed … this woman was listening to me, she wasn’t going to send me home to die on my own in the night, she saw I was sick and was helping! I never took her name but she saved me that day!!