A snippet of my book's introduction

"Oh, I’m sure its nothing; just a little bit of blood. I won’t bother mentioning it to anyone.”

“Ok, the bleeding has been going on for a few months now, maybe i should visit the GP.”

“My god, Mr Wyatt you need to be assessed urgently.”

“You have proctitis; your rectum is inflamed but nothing a little medication shouldn’t fix.”

“I’m afraid your disease has worsened. Your entire large colon is now inflamed. You are going to have to start a very large dosage of steroids and a variety of other drugs."

"Nothing is working. These jabs are your last hope Michael."

"I don't know how to tell you this, but you need to have surgery. We're very sorry it has come to this."

All of that happened within the space of 13 months. The year 2013 was a year that I will never forget. It threw challenges at me that I didn't even know existed. Before October 2012, I didn't even know what Inflammatory Bowel Diseases were, let alone imagine I would ever be an extreme sufferer of one. Ulcerative colitis changed my life for ever. 

In October 2012, I was diagnosed with mild proctitis-inflammation of the rectum. The doctor who assessed me seemed to think that a few steroid enemas would do the trick. At first, he was correct. My six inches of inflammation reduced down to two inches within a couple of months. He seemed confident that if I reduced my anxiety and became less uptight, those two inches would disappear. However, by February 2013, a full colonoscopy conducted at St. Anthony's hospital in Cheam showed that a full metre of my large bowel had become inflamed and incredibly ulcerated. I was diagnosed with extreme ulcerative colitis there and then, at age 17, and had no idea of the journey that lied ahead of me. 

Ulcerative Colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that can cause catastrophic effects on a person’s life. I won’t bore you with the science behind the disease because, for you to be reading this book, I can imagine that you have a pretty good idea of what it entails. However, for the benefit of those who don’t know, this is the short version: ulcerative colitis causes a person’s large bowel (also known as large intestine or colon) to become ulcerated and inflamed. This causes the sufferer to pass many, many bloody motions a day, normally between 10 and 20. The urges for these motions are often uncontrollable and the sufferer can have accidents if they are too far from a toilet. The loss of blood can lead to anaemia, tiredness and fatigue. Every colitis case is different, however, so do not take my explannation as a set in stone diagnosis.

What the medical journals and textbooks don’t show in the explanation of Ulcerative Colitis is the emotional distress that it causes—and that is my motivation behind writing this self-help book. Over the last year and a half, I have experienced emotions that I didn’t even know existed and have seen myself go through drastic physical and mental changes.