Matilda’s Story
I was around 14 when I started to experience symptoms, nothing major but the odd bit of stomach ache, wind & needing to go to the loo a bit more than usual! Fast forward to my GCSE’s & that’s when I realised something was massively wrong. I was going to the toilet about 25/30 times a day, most of it being blood, losing a lot of weight and feeling extremely tired most of the time.
It took me a good 2 years to be diagnosed, being passed from pillar to post, told to “man up”, “it’s just a sick bug” and to “get over it, it’s just your period”. Once I was diagnosed it’s a massive process of trialing drugs. I tried countless amounts of drugs, injections and infusions for them all to only work up to about a year until my body rejected them. Every time I was in a flare I was put on steroids which were just ruining my mental health massively! During this time I hid away and got so scared to leave the house, the fear of disappointing my friends and family due to having to cancel plans loomed over me & the thought of having to plan every trip I went just got too much! I was so ready to give in.
Lockdown stumbled around a year later and I got really poorly with my Crohn’s, I lost 5 stone in a couple months and had to be admitted to hospital for a long few weeks. Throughout my stay I nearly died a couple times, I was put on a NG tube and had all sorts of procedures done. They discovered a massive abscess on my bowel which was causing sepsis & wanted to operate but my body was too weak, luckily a strong course of antibiotics saved the day!
After this I really struggled with food and my body which spiraled into anorexia. I knew I had a long battle ahead, but finding climbing & the outdoors managed to pull me out of that dark hole! It gave my mind something to focus on & just made me feel alive again! I started to feel my spark coming back & it was great, I got put on some more infusions but again my body built up antibodies to them.
Fast forward to now, I’m a month and a half into recovery from having my whole colon removed after exhausting all drug options. It was a bit of a shock hearing I needed this surgery & everything happened so quickly but let’s hope this allows me to live a semi-normal life and I can get back to climbing soon!
Remember anyone going through something similar, it does get better, even if you think it doesn’t, it does! My messages are always open and I’m always here to listen! Stay cool & stay climbing!
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