Alas, there was a method to my madness.
The reason for this is that all my body problems seem to be on my right side. See? Now it all makes sense!
When having one of my many early MRI scans at Chelsea & West, the results seemed to show up something other than my terminal ileum Crohn's. It appeared that I was also suffering a PUJ obstruction with my right kidney. I like to call this Sod's Law as this was completely unrelated to my Crohn's.
By all accounts it was a childhood problem that had taken around 18 years to build up enough to actually cause me any bother.
In layman's terms: imagine a stone stuck in a hosepipe. That water can get through, just not as well as it would if that stone wasn't there. I had this hypothetical situation actually happening inside me. My kidney function on my right hand side had dropped to 18%, with the left doing 82% of the work; they should be evenly split, 50/50.
To fix it I would need an operation (now where've we heard that before?! Haha) but excitingly, I got to have my operation up in Paddington with a robot.
The robot was usually reserved for patients having prostate cancer operations, as it is so precise and can dramatically decrease the recovery time. Fortunately because of my age (I had not long turned 21) this meant that I was eligible to be robot-opped on.
1st September 2009 and I am gowned up and ready to go in.
For a bit of light relief, I feel that this is the best time to reference comedienne Miranda Hart and her explanation of a hospital gown, as quite frankly, it tickles me... Gown, gown, gown, arse gap, gown gown gown. That is all.
Now where was I? Oh another operation!
I feel the best way for you to understand what went on thereafter, is not by using medical jargon, but creating a marvellous photo collage of what I was like from when I came round (after 6hrs on the operating table) to where I ended up.
Squeamish warning for one and all
On the plus side, seeing these old photos again has made me realise how much stress my abdomen has already been through and now it's like nothing ever happened. If I get to feel like this in another 3 years when looking back at my forthcoming op, I shall be #WINNING
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