Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

First of all let me tell you a little bit about the disease. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the large intestines. It is not caused by food, it is not contagious and the exact cause is still unknown. Symptoms of UC include rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, fatigue, inflammation and tenesmus...wait! What is tenesmus I hear you ask? Well it's your worst nightmare. It's the constant feeling to move your bowels and when I say MOVE I mean move. This means you're unable to control your bowel and when it comes...it comes.

I was diagnosed with this horrible disease in 2002 and over the next 2 years I fought UC with everything the doctors could prescribe. Diets and drugs just didn't work, and it was affecting my life completely. I couldn't do the things I loved including playing football or socialising with my friends for fear of needing to go to the toilet. The drugs were making me extremely tired, bloated and some days I just felt like sleeping all day and doing nothing. It came to the point where I needed to take so much medication I lost count and I had become steroid dependent, so enough was enough! My intestines were so badly damaged I needed surgery and I needed it urgently. I then met Dr James Eccersley, Consultant Surgeon at Burton Hospital. They say he's the best and let me tell you now he really is the BEST! He took one look at my notes, scans and biopsies etc. and I was told my large bowel was so damaged, it needed to be removed. He explained to me that it was a 3 stage operation and not to be taken lightly. My first operation saw him remove my large bowel, rectum and all the horrible disease and give me an ileostomy bag. At 24 years old, you might think this should have been a horrible thought but considering how poorly I was I would have done anything to feel better again. The surgery lasted around 8 hours and was successful. I woke to an ileostomy bag attached to me and from that moment on I decided it was now time to be Paul again and feel better. After a week in hospital it was time to go home. My little bag never ceased to amaze me. Sometimes when changing the bag it just kept giving and would take 30 minutes to change and some days 5 minutes. It seemed to have a little mind of its own! However, as soon as I was home I started to feel better. I had more energy, the pain had gone and I felt like getting up in the morning! It was an amazing feeling. For 6 long months, my amazing family and friends supported me and helped me to get back playing football for Gresley Rovers and I was able to hit the gym most days. 

It was now time for operation number 2; the reversal surgery.  This was to remove the small intestine sticking out of my tummy and make a rugby shaped bowel which would then be stitched together and sent back out of my stomach in to another stoma bag. After 6 hours in surgery I was back on the ward and after another week in hospital I was able to go home. This time things took a little longer including the healing process - going from being so poorly to feeling well then back to feeling not so good again, was hard to accept.

So let's fast forward. I'd made a deal with Dr Eccersley - if I was well enough he agreed he would do the third and last operation within 6 months...5 months later and a lot of hard work it was time for the final operation to reconstruct my internal system. The surgery went well and my little stoma bag had gone. All I was left with were 2 big scars on my tummy. WOW all done and from that day I've never looked back. Yes I still take many tablets to prevent infection and for efficiency purposes BUT these are a small price to pay for how I feel now from how I felt then. What a difficult few years and something I'll never forget, and I am grateful for all the help I have received along the way from my family and friends.

Since my recovery I've always tried to challenge myself wherever possible (My first feat was climbing Mount Toubkal in Morocco in 2007!). But turning 40 in 2020 coupled with wanting to raise awareness for this horrible disease, I decided to do something a little different. SO...I've signed up to do the Lakesman triathlon which involves a 1.2 mile swim, 55 mile bike ride and a half marathon (13.1 miles) in and around Keswick in Cumbria. Writing it all down now, I'm thinking what have I done??!!! Ha ha! This is a big challenge and is taking a lot of training and effort. I'm hoping to complete this triathlon in under 6 hours. Sounds mad doesn't it?      

So all I am asking is please, please donate as much as you can to this worthy cause, so hopefully, through research, one day we can beat this disease forever.

Many thanks for reading my story. I really do appreciate it. 

Paul 

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