How I became a BAD-ass! (short-ish version)

My BAD journey began in 2013, when I was 27 years old. I found myself lying on the bathroom floor, in a pool of my own sweat, experiencing pain like none I had ever felt before. I don’t know exactly for how long, but the pain continued for quite a while; I couldn’t find relief in any position on the floor or from going to the toilet. I honestly thought I was going to die there alone on that beige bathroom floor. I eventually managed to crawl into the bedroom, by this point the pain was subsiding ever so slightly, or perhaps I was just getting used to it. As far as I can remember I curled up in a ball and eventually fell asleep in the early hours of the morning.

A few weeks went by, and I had dismissed the pain as being a random one off. There was so much else going on in my life right now anyway, divorce and selling the marital home, maybe the pain was a trauma response? a stress reaction? or at least that’s what I decided at the time.

Then, one night when I was rattling around in the house alone, the pain struck again. It was furious this time. Crippled, breathless and in excruciating pain, this was no longer a one-off thing; something was very wrong. I don’t know how long I was on the floor that night before I mustered up the ability to call for an ambulance but either way it was another hour before they got to me. Two lovely female paramedics checked me over and gave me some pain relief. As the pain dissolved, they decided that I did not need to go to A&E that night, but that I needed to get this followed up as soon as possible with my GP.

Fast forward a few weeks, and thankfully it was only a few weeks, I went in for an ultrasound for suspected gallstones. As I met with the radiographer, she thought the appointment was a mistake, ‘you can’t have gallstones’, I knew what she meant; I had done my research after speaking to my GP. I didn’t fit the usual criteria, but if nothing else we needed to rule it out. We were wrong. It was indeed gallstones. Fuck. Talk about bad timing, not that there is ever a good time for your body to malfunction, but I really didn’t need something else to deal with right now.

I can’t remember exactly how long it was before I then had my cholecystectomy, but I only had one more episode of pain during the wait. It was less scary that time, now knowing what it was, but no less painful!

The operation recovery was horrendous. It wasn’t my only experience of surgery or anesthetic, but it has been one of my worst. The pain was very much like the pain I’d experienced during the gallbladder attacks, this time it radiated up into my shoulder, which I now know is the pain from the gas they pump into you during the operation. I deal with pain pretty well but fuck me it hurts!

I needed to be cared for during my recovery, so I moved back to my parents temporarily. Recovery was long. The internal pain was intense for days. I found that laying on my right side with a hot water bottle against my shoulder helped ease the intensity a little though. I had lost my appetite, but my Mum kept me topped up with soups and from what I’ve learnt since this is the best thing to do post op, probably for the first week at least.

I thought all of the gallbladder issues would be behind me once the wounds had healed and the pain had dispersed. Everything I had read or heard seemed to imply that you didn’t need your gallbladder, and me being naive didn’t think much of it, I certainly wasn't warned that there may be long term complications or anything such as BAD. So many people have theirs removed every year so it must be OK? How wrong was I?!

A few months post-op my bowel habits still hadn’t settled down. I spoke to my GP about it but because I already had an issue with IBS and with gluten they kept fobbing me off. It was a year or two before they got sick of me and referred me back to Gastroenterology. That time of my life was hellish, my stress levels were through the roof with a lot going on in my personal life, then on top of that I had these frequent explosive, toilet trips and felt like nothing I ate would stay in my body.

The Gastroenterology team ran some tests to ensure nothing else was going on but eventually concluded that I must have Bile Acid Malabsorption/Diarrhoea. I was prescribed me Cholestyramine to see if that helped; the fact that it did, meant they were happy with their diagnosis without doing a SeHCAT scan.

That was that. Here’s your meds, take them for life, top up with Loperamide (Imodium) when required, and off you go…

…except, and if you’ve lived with BAD for a while you will already know, it’s not that straight forward to live with which is why I’m opening up about my experiences here.