A brave young woman has spoken out about her battle with a bowel condition that has impacted her not just physically, but mentally.
Alissa Redmond, 34, a degree apprenticeship coach from North Wales, believes stress brought on her symptoms, which included blood in her stool and extreme fatigue. Alissa struggles with health anxiety and was extremely panicked when she discovered her symptoms and that she would have to wait a long time for any NHS investigation.
Due to her anxiety, Alissa borrowed £3,000 from her parents to see a private doctor to have a colonoscopy carried out.
She was convinced she had cancer, meaning when she finally got the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, she was relieved rather than stressed.
“Prior to my diagnosis, I had always been healthy,” Alissa remembers.
(Image: Alissa Redmond/Cover Images)
“Bar the normal run-of-the-mill minor sicknesses and injuries, I had never really had any health concerns.
“In the months running up to my diagnosis, I was very stressed as I had experienced a run of bad luck over a six-month period, with issues selling my home which caused financial worries, which was followed by being put at risk of redundancy out of the blue.
“It was only later that I learnt that stress is known to be a key trigger of flare-ups in people with ulcerative colitis.
“Good things were happening too though – only three weeks or so before my symptoms first started, my partner and I got engaged on one of our local beaches.”
Alissa’s journey with ulcerative colitis started in April, two days after finding out she had been successful in her application to keep her job.
“I started passing blood along with my poo,” Alissa recalls.
(Image: Alissa Redmond/Cover Images)
“Over a period of four days, every time I went to the toilet, the toilet water would turn red and bright red blood would saturate the toilet paper.
“The first day, I was a little worried but not too fazed.
“When it continued the next day and the next, I became concerned and booked an appointment with my GP.
“In all honesty, I expected to go to my appointment and be told, as I always had been previously in my life with any health concerns, that it was nothing; something minor and harmless like piles.
“As soon as the doctor said after an examination that currently the cause of my bleeding wasn’t obvious, I panicked.
“I burst into tears and the little fear that had been in the back of my mind came racing to the forefront – I was now terrified that I had bowel cancer.”
(Image: Alissa Redmond/Cover Images)
Alissa was told by the GP that she would be sent a kit in the post to test her stool for blood.
“We spoke about whether I had had any other symptoms; unexplained weight loss, fatigue, diarrhoea, and all of my answers were no,” she adds.
“Within a week I had the results of my test, which showed levels of blood in my poo high enough to warrant further investigation. My test result was 21.
“Because it wasn’t explained to me what the normal range might be or how high someone’s score might be, such as in the hundreds, this sounded like a really high score to me.
“This is when I started to spiral into a real panic. I was absolutely convinced I must have cancer, and I was terrified.
“I was referred for a colonoscopy by my GP, and was told that I would be on the list to be seen urgently, which only added to my terror.
“My assumption had been that because of this urgency, within a few weeks I would have had my colonoscopy, but a few weeks went by and I still didn’t have a date for it.
(Image: Alissa Redmond/Cover Images)
“I called the booking clerk at the hospital and this is when I was told that due to the lengthy waiting list, I wouldn’t be seen until June.”
By this point, though Alissa hadn’t experienced any more bleeding, she was experiencing fatigue, nausea and minor abdominal pain.
She was an anxious wreck, convinced that she had cancer, and that each new symptom was a sign that it was spreading.
“Looking back, of course, my anxiety itself was exacerbating some of these symptoms, but at the time I was terrified that it was cancer, and it was getting more serious and less treatable in the time it would take to get my colonoscopy,” Alissa explains.
“Consumed by fear, I made the call to my parents; ‘Can I please borrow £3000?’.
“Two weeks later, which was five weeks since my initial bleeding, I was travelling from my home on Anglesey to Chester to get my colonoscopy by paying for it privately.
“I had never before even considered private healthcare because quite frankly, I couldn’t afford it, but by this point, I had spiralled down so far into my anxiety that I had convinced myself I was dying.
“In my mind, I was paying £3,000 to save my life. My colonoscopy showed a small area of ulcers, and this was confirmed by biopsy to be caused by ulcerative colitis.”
Alissa says that she was overjoyed to receive the diagnosis because although it was a serious condition, it wasn’t the cancer she had been fearing.
“I was just so incredibly relieved about what it wasn’t. It was only over the coming weeks and months that it started to dawn on me the reality of what it was.
“I stand by the decision I made to spend the money on getting a colonoscopy sooner, because my mental health was at rock bottom, and I couldn’t see how I could have mentally endured another month of waiting.”
Alissa hopes to raise awareness of the effects of ulcerative colitis.
“I also really want anyone out there who is newly diagnosed, or has had any related symptoms to check out the Crohns and Colitis UK website, or call them on their helpline; I cannot express just how impressed I have been with their resources.”