Isn’t modern medicine great? It seems that what ever illness you could possible have, there’s a pill, a therapy, an operation to make it all better. And once you’re all better, you can go back to work. Fantastic.

If you illness lasts a while and you can’t work, there’s nothing really to worry about because your employer will be very supportive and understanding, wont they? Hmm.

Well, I started this Blog to tell everyone of my experience of being very ill. My name is Richard James and I work for a large Mental Health and Supported Housing charity in South East England.

I am going to go into all my symptoms (if you are of a sensitive nature, do not read on… you have been warned). I will tell you of how supportive my employer has been and the treatment I have received from medical services since my illness began.

I have worked for the charity for seven years and am based in a Mental Health project in Victoria, London. I first became ill about five months ago (this is the bit where I tell you about my symptoms). I would wake up around six in the morning and I would run to the bathroom to throw-up before going to work, then I stared throwing-up during the day and could no longer attend to my job, I had to take sick-leave. Then the diarrhoea started, and then came the blood in my poo.

Now I’m going to get a little graphic; when I throw-up, it feels like my stomach is turning inside out, whatever come up feels about five times larger than my throat and comes out very slowly. This is really painful, it leaves my covered in sweat and exhausted; I have woken up on the bathroom floor many times after throwing-up. If I’m not throwing-up, then I’m retching for hours on end. If this wasn’t bad enough, my poo comes out as a thick black paste, swimming in blood. I feel bloated and have stomach cramps, random pains in my side and down my back and my appetite has vanished. I get hot flushes and sweat constantly. I can’t leave my apartment for more than a few minutes, so my social life has gone out the window. Meal times are great fun; if I can eat, I do. But the meal normally ends up in the toilet about half an hour after eating. On good days, I can keep water down. On bad days, nothing stays down.

Now, like most people, I went to see my doctor. My doctor said things like “ah” and “oh” and sent me for blood tests.  The blood tests showed I have a raised white cell count, but nothing else. But he did sign me off work. Things didn’t get any better, so I went back to my doctor, who sent me to the local hospital for a barrage of tests.

So far, I have had; a barium follow-through meal. This is where you drink barium and then they take x-rays of your stomach. Barium is a thick, white liquid that tastes really bad. The results of this test showed that there is nothing wrong.

I then had a Colonoscopy, where they put a camera up your bum and have a good look at the bowel (very, very uncomfortable), and this test showed that there is nothing wrong.

I then had a Endoscopy, where they put a camera down the throat to look inside the stomach. The test results showed that there is nothing wrong.

I’ve had Ultra Sounds and CT scans, prodded and poked, all showing how fit and healthy I am.

I then had a barium enema… not pleasant at all. Can you guess the test results? That’s right, nothing wrong. The strange thing about this test, and the doctors can’t explain this, is that I started to retch after the test and could taste the barium in the back of my throat. This means that the barium went into my bum, then can out of my mouth (disgusting!).

I have had so many tests that I can’t remember them all. I spoke with my doctor about this, and was told that it was all in my head and that I probably have depression. Depression, my doctor said, would account for all my symptoms. I asked if would account for the blood in my poo, he looked sheepishly at and said “Erm, no”, so I asked, if he had thought I was depressed, why had he not mentioned this on the numerous occasions I had seen him since my illness had begun. This question didn’t go down very well. He became agitated and told me “I’m not going to take that” and suggested that I would be removed from the building. So no help there then.

So what treatment have I received for my symptoms, I hear you ask. Well, I have not had any treatment. I have begged for treatment, but have been told that I can’t be treated until they know what’s wrong. I have treated myself with over the counter medications for IBS (Irritable Bowl Syndrome), I’ve tried concentrated peppermint to relieve bloating and a hundred other remedies. Nothing works.

So, for the past five months I spend my days being sick, retching, pooing blood and passing out.

Well, at least my employer has been supportive (just a little hint of sarcasm there). In the next instalment, I will tell you just how supportive they have (not) been.

See you then, I’m off to loose my dinner to the toilet now.