The story so far...

Well, the basics are this: I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis last August, after a few weeks of what I thought was a nasty stomach bug. I (rather excitingly, I thought, at the time) got rushed into hospital in a real ambulance, where a very swift diagnosis was made - I hadn't really heard of UC at the time and was mostly worried that I had bowel cancer. As people say, having a name for the disease - and satisfying that annoying voice saying 'pull yourself together, you pathetic bastard!' - was super, and getting treatment was even better.

So, I was in hospital for about a week, in 2008, and then had about, say, 9 weeks off work. Swallowing diminishing numbers of those little red Prednisolone pills, I got better rather slowly, but by November, life was back to normal. I spent a long time avidly reading forums and blogs about UC, but then more-or-less forgot about having it, other than taking the big red Mezavant pills every day before bed.

I gaily went about my life until the beginning of June 2009, when the strange colitis-y feelings began to return, intruding on my holiday. I was on a strange vacation with my mother and 13 other OAPs, painting watercolours of nice flowers and landscapes and things. Again, when it started off, I just felt 'not quite right' - which sounds something like an advert for thrush now I type it - and spent a lot of time in bed. Returning to England, I connected up the fact that I'd been given anti-inflammatory pills to treat my arthritis with the uneasy bowel feeling. I stopped taking them and felt instantly better.

Off to Paris for my cousin's wedding, I didn't feel quite right, but at the same time was determined to 'enjoy' myself - mostly involving getting really drunk to avoid the awkwardness of a family occasion. Being seated at a table isolated among a group of trendy Parisian 20-somethings added to my anxiety, and added to my drinking.

Anyway, I didn't feel as ill as I deserved to, but still was having quite a lot of trips to the bathroom. About three days into our trip, I realised I couldn't actually do anything. At all. So the last couple of days were spent lying in the hotel, feeling annoyed.

Back in the UK again, I arranged to see my specialist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and limped into work with the liberal and expensive help of the black cab drivers of London.

I'd assumed it would be the same as before, and to start with, it more or less was - I toddled home with 65mg of Prednisolone to take every day, and began lying about in bed with a bit more medical backing. Dr Ng, one of my lovely specialists at C&W, had mentioned that I should go back in if it wasn't improving within 3-4 days. My frequency didn't really change that much, and I react pretty badly to steroids anyway - but still, I sort of didn't feel too bad. I actually ended up going into hospital - and I realise this sounds ridiculous and really quite bad writing it now - mostly because I thought it would look a bit more 'real' if I told my work that I'd been in hospital again. I was quite panicky at the time that it would end up being another three months off work, and worried that even my cushy public sector employer would start grumbling.

I feel like starting this paragraph 'little did I know...' or something else suitably portentous and cliched. But, yes, what came next was a bit of a shock.