If you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ll probably have noticed that I seem to be suffering with some kind of debilitating bowel condition, usually leaving me with either vomiting, diarrhoea, strange gut noises, excess gas, odd smells, you name it. Except apparently, I’m not suffering with some kind of debilitating bowel condition. I’m making it all up. That’s what the Doctors think – it’s all in my head.
Bestie had a stomach bug last week. We actually thought he had norovirus (sp?) – a virus that is apparently doing the rounds over here, crippling one person at a time with dodgy guts and flu-like symptoms. Then I got it. Or so we thought. Six days later, when I was still vomiting at least once a day, and still getting a very bad stomach even though there was nothing left inside it, I made myself a doctors appointment. I’d already called in sick at work once and had my head well and truly bitten off by my boss who has turned out to be a real dick about all of this. If I hear the words “following procedures” one more time come out of his mouth, I’m going to ram my fucking fist down it. I know what the fucking procedures are you little cunt. I’m well-fucking-aware.
The Doc told me that although there are lots of little problems discovered throughout the investigations into why my insides are trying to kill me, there was nothing serious to give a real reason behind it. My anxiety is getting out of control, however, so she’s referred me to yet another shrink, and given me a prescription for a course of antidepressants / anti-anxiety pills that I should be on for about six months, starting off on the lowest dose and working my way up from there.
Sorry, how is this possible? I’ve already thrown up in the garbage can in my bedroom once this morning, and my stomach has had me doubled over in pain and running to the bathroom three times. I’ve been belching up air that tastes and smells like egg, even though I haven’t actually eaten eggs for a good couple of months, and I feel as if I have been hit by a truck. How is there seriously nothing wrong with me? How can they seriously not find anything wrong with me??
The doc asked if I had allergy tests yet. Nope. I have been promised a dietician for months but nothing has materialised. She’s sent me off for more blood tests, given me a pamphlet for a new shrink, a thirty quid prescription for drugs I really didn’t want in the first place, and still no answer to my questions. There are still no results from my endoscopy biopsy from back at the beginning of April. The endoscopy itself only showed a small patch of erosion in my stomach, and some GERD. Whatever GERD is. Again, none of this has been explained to me. I have no idea what GERD is, or I didn’t until I researched it myself with the help of Google. And we all know what Google does. It takes a headache and convinces you you’re suffering with lung cancer.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know what a blessing the NHS is. I’ve lived on the other side of the world where you need to pay for your healthcare unless you have some pretty good benefits. I’m not complaining about it per se. Well, actually I am. Don’t I pay for this NHS? Why isn’t it doing me any favours right now?
For a while I thought they might have been right. Maybe this was all in my head? Maybe I was doing this to myself each and every morning I woke up, my skin wracked with goosebumps because I was in so much pain on the toilet? But how can I be? I know the mind is a powerful thing, but surely even the mind can’t give me chronic diarrhoea for three days in a row, when there is literally nothing left inside my body to produce as waste?
This is starting to have a very real and very negative impact on my life yet the Doctor’s can’t find anything wrong. Apart from the polyp up my ass which didn’t end up being bowel cancer, but still put me at high risk, plus the diverticula (or diverticulitis – we aren’t sure which, and each doctor calls it something different) which apparently, isn’t a real condition and shouldn’t be giving me any symptoms at all, and the GERD plus minor erosion they found when they sent a camera down my throat, apparently there is nothing wrong with me.
There is nothing inside me that would give an exact reason as to why I get diarrhoea most days, and vomiting on the very worst of them. They can’t explain why my stomach makes so much noise, that I no longer feel comfortable eating in public. They can’t explain why it feels as if I have marbles rolling around inside me, causing some very real discomfort. They can’t explain why I projectile-vomited in the kitchen sink at a party of four held just for me because I keep blowing them out when there is a massive group of people are around, while they were trying to dish up dinner. They can’t explain why I had the worst pain underneath my sternum the other night, to the point where I almost took myself off to the hospital. They can’t explain why I have spent the entirety of today burping up what tastes and smells just like egg, even though I’ve not eaten egg in months. None of these very real symptoms can be explained by anything. They keep telling me there is nothing wrong with me. Surely that’s not right?
None of my doctors know how to communicate with each other. I have never seen the same doctor two times in a row. Nobody knows about ALL of my symptoms. They haven’t listened to the recordings I made on my phone when my stomach-noise was at it’s worst and loudest. They haven’t heard the cries when I’m in crippling pain because it feels as if my intestines are being twisted around by giant hands. They aren’t understanding how I’m down to barely one meal a day, and even then I can’t guarantee whether it will stay down… Or up. They don’t listen to how EXHAUSTED I feel for most of the day. I wake up more tired than when I went to bed, and I have zero energy left by the time I’ve made it TO work, let alone HOME from work.
Speaking of work. I’ve quit my job. I’ve handed in my 30-day notice. I seem to have skipped an ‘action plan’ for my sickness, and gone straight to a written warning disciplinary, and my boss is making this really hard for me. I’m not sure whether or not he’s trying to, but I’m already well aware of how much I’m letting them down. I’m trying so hard to make it to work every day. I really am trying. But with my anxiety apparently getting worse, it would seem like I’m not doing a very good job of keeping it together. This was the last straw for him, this final week I’ve been signed off by my Doctor. He’s having me moved to another store. That’s what he messaged me back. This doesn’t work for him or me. Blah blah blah.
Fuck it. I quit. I’ll be a writer and hope and pray everything works out. If it doesn’t, I’ll go looking for another job. I guess?
See, I’ve been putting off becoming a full-time writer for about three years. I’m so scared that I won’t pull myself together. I’ll be self-employed. I’ll need to kick my own ass into actually doing the work I need to do. And if we go by the last three months I had signed off work, where I did the bare minimum (although I was having the HARDEST time and was VERY sick), it’s not going to go well at all.
But I’m a different person now, aren’t I? Although my insides might not agree with me, aren’t I meant to be a ‘stronger’ person these days? Surely, with all the time I’ll have, and the knowledge that my ‘day job’ won’t pay my rent if I don’t finish that writing project, I’ll be able to make it work? Well, I don’t have a choice now. Because I’ve done it. My response to him was “I’ll hand my letter of notice in tomorrow. I can’t do this anymore”
I’ve written it out. I just need to email it to him. But I’m putting it off. I don’t know why. Not that it matters because he’s already told at least one other work colleague. It’s not like I can just back out now, is it? I can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he told my work colleague I was quitting before I’d even handed my notice to him. What a cunt.
There has got to be an end to this never-ending story of shit soon, surely? Oh, did I throw into the mix that I still seem to be bleeding for a week or so after every time I have sex with Someone New? Yes, that’s right – I didn’t even mention my pre-cancerous cells on the cervix situation I have going on at the same time as all that shit. Well, after my LLETZ procedure, I am bleeding far too fucking regularly for my liking. And that awful traumatic experience was months ago now. I cannot seem to get a fucking break. At all!
Plus, all this vomiting… And the bleeding? I’ve only just gone back on the pill… Tomorrow I think I’ll do a test. Just in case. You know, what with all the bad luck I seem to have had recently, I wouldn’t past it past fate to throw a fucking badly-timed pregnancy into the mix. Oh please God, don’t let it be that. I’ve never really prayed before but I will be praying like anything that it’s not that. For once, the boyfriend situation is the only part of my life going quite nicely. I’d be so pissed if that got all screwed up just like the rest of my life.
Bad times, peeps. Bad times.
Rant over.