After years spent living with the agony of Crohn's disease I chose to undergo this risky and rarely performed operation
I guess everyone's idea of normality is very different. When I was younger, being normal was all about hoping that my football team, QPR, would win a trophy. I wondered whether I would ever get my ideal job, have a partner and family. How little did I know that my idea of normality was to change so dramatically and would involve having a bowel transplant at 42.
At the age of 12, I was diagnosed with an inflammatory bowel disease known as Crohn's, which around 60,000 people in the UK suffer from. It is a chronic, incurable illness that causes inflammation, deep ulcers and scarring, mainly to the wall of the intestine, but it can affect anywhere from mouth to colon. The usual symptoms are abdominal pain, diarrhoea, lethargy and weight loss. My teenage years were ruled by how many times I went to the toilet each day (usually 10), whether the pains in my stomach and joints would ever go, and when I would be in hospital again. Treatment was through powerful daily drugs.
I was unlucky. My Crohn's was severe and the drugs failed to control the disease. The only treatment was to cut out sections of my inflamed intestine. I had 20 such operations and by 2010 was left with only 70cm of small intestine – the average person's measures five metres. At that point I had intestinal failure. I was constantly sick, couldn't absorb food or drink and could only be fed intravenously for 16 hours a day from a large bag. This had its own dangers – it is known to cause liver damage – and was therefore not a permanent solution.
I wanted a normal life, without being wedded to a permanent artificial feeding regime and medications to control sickness and pain. It wasn't just my family life that was affected. I had to stop work as the illness closed off most opportunities to maintain an income.
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