At some point in my teens I took up a strange habit of curling up into a ball every so often. Like many bad habits, it had its downsides. But it also taught me a valuable lesson: that there are actual human angels living with us here on this, our beautiful Mother Earth. 

I would get cramps. Every day. And I didn’t know what they were (... lots of things I hoped they weren’t). All I knew was that they felt like someone was wringing out my insides like a wet towel and I had to fart afterwards. Then open all the windows and leave the room, before breathing in. 

I didn’t tell anyone for a long time. I was scared, a bit embarrassed, scared, and hopeful that they would pass. They did not.  

Eventually, my family asked about the gas and it all came tumbling out. I went to see a doctor. I was given pills which I thought would make the cramps stop, or at least give my friends and family room to breath. They did not. 

And so I was introduced to an actual angel on Earth: Dr. Margaret Myszor, consultant gastroenterologist. She explained calmly that I had Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. It’s a condition – I read up later - that some people need surgery to deal with because it gets so bad. They then have to poo into bags, which they had to carry around all day with them. That’s true, said Dr. Myszor, but stop looking things up on Google. Instead: she would explain. And for the next few years, with every new development, that is what she did.  

I had ulcers and fissures in my large intestine. These were caused by an inflamed immune system. My colon thought it was being attacked and so was sending out the defenses. But it wasn’t being attacked, and keeping up the defenses at all times was actually hurting me. 

They don’t yet know what causes Crohn’s disease or UC, and they don’t yet have a cure. As part of my diagnosis I was taught my least favourite word: ‘chronic’. If I didn’t find the right pills and send the condition into remission I was going to feel this pain for the rest of my life. 

But Dr. Myszor told me that there were lots of different medications to try. So we went searching. 

I took pills that looked like they were designed for horses, and made me burp white dust. I shook sachets of little pellets out onto my tongue before meals. I learned how to spell flexi-sigmoidoscopy. And every day: every meal, every toilet visit (and for some reason every time I switched bluetooth on...) would – at best - send me spiraling down for a long sore wait.  

But all this time I believed in the Power of Myszor. No matter the pain, the days off school, the tears at home: when I sat in her office she made me feel that I would be okay.  

Even still, about ten years ago I passed a point. I passed the point of being able to continue, and I asked Dr. Myzsor the question. “Would my life be better with a colostomy bag?”  

I remember Dr. Myszor pausing only ever so slightly before giving me one of her characteristic straight-talking accounts of the facts. And once I had the facts I knew that was it. 

The operation is called an ileostomy. A surgeon would remove my colon almost completely, cut a hole in my abdomen and use that to let the newly detached end of my small intestine poke out. This is called a stoma. I would then fix a small bag over the stoma to collect any output. And the pain would be gone. 

Once I had the date for my surgery, I booked an appointment with my personal tutor, I left uni, and took up residence in an armchair at home in an attempt to catch up on all the reading I should actually have done before starting an English degree.  

One morning I went with my Dad into work to meet my second actual angel here on earth: his colleague Lisa. Lisa had an ileostomy herself, and she gave up all the time I needed to answer every. single. one. of my questions. Oh boy there were many. Lisa showed me that life with an ileostomy is a normal life. What more can you ask for? Lisa also told me that ileostomy patients often name their stomas, some negatively – but not all. Hers was Winnie (as in Winnie the Pooh – ha!).  

Another morning I drove through a snow storm, worthy of Fargo, to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where a woman took out a sharpie and drew a big black spot on my stomach, just to the right of my belly button. 

And so, on the 6th March 2009, we found ourselves in a hospital room. I had just learned the powers of a phosphate enema. We were waiting for a bed to take me to theatre. I was more nervous than I have ever felt. That moment, a man in scrubs came in to ask if I would like to take part in some research to do with ileostomy patients. Why not, I said. And for ten minutes this man told us jokes, took a few blood samples, made us laugh and forget why we were there. This man was also an actual angel on earth. The name on his badge was Jensen, and that’s what I named my stoma. 

I awoke a few hours later, a bit dizzy, possessed of an uncomfortably active sense of humour that I stupidly used to scare a few nurses AND my parents … with a transparent bag attached to my stomach. Inside it was Jensen. A thick bright red worm. Attached to me forever.  

A couple of days later, I enjoyed my first pain free Mars bar for years. The cramps … were gone! 

Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis affects about 300,000 in the UK, and I’m always amazed at the number of people who already know someone who has it when I tell them about myself – either battling with medication, or with an ileostomy. It darkened my teenage years for me and for my family, and I would really like to help find a way to stop that happening to other people. 

But that is only half the reason I’m raising money. I am disabled, I suppose. But having a colostomy bag -  and Jensen – have only ENabled me to live a normal, happy life which I am grateful for every day. And a month after the 10 year anniversary of my op I would dearly like to celebrate how lucky I am,  and pay homage to all of those angels who helped me get here 

… by completely destroying other parts of my body over the course of 26.2 miles 

If you can help me with either of these things, in any way and to any extent, I would be so very grateful for your support.