Food has always been a matter of obsession in my family. I’m not talking about the cooking or appreciation of it (which we all do well) but an underlying current of fear of being or getting fat.

With one bulimic and one anorexic in the family (and a dad obsessed with eating bananas) as a child I was glad I had no rogue food-fixated blood lines and a wonderful metabolism that could cope with an addiction to Yorkshire puddings which often verged in the double digits. I used to watch my sister eat two bites of tuna fish on a rice cracker for dinner for the 5th day in a row and I would scoff down another biscuit as to say, feck you food – you aren’t getting me…

I must have taunted the chocolate gods one too many times, because at 19 years old I turned out to be completely wrong. I developed only what could be described as a fucked up stomach.

Over the years i’ve been told I might have bowel cancer, crone’s disease or I might be a celiac along with a having a cyst, an ulcer, or even a hernia . To date I’ve had 6 sets of blood tests, two colonoscopies (full and half), a colposcopy, a laparoscopy and most recently whilst under heavy sedation I rejected an upper endoscopy despite 2 doctors holding me down.

I’m not a good patient anymore.

Stress, worry and I have become really close. As have me and my loo. Oh and my bed. As has the boy with the contents of my bowels at any one time.

But today, actually at 10.30am this morning, we had a breakthrough. After taking another two needles of blood from my arm that left me feeling a little woozy, I was handed the magic piece of paper that contained a possible solution, that would get me back to work, to stop me from throwing up, to get rid of my yo-yoing weight and 6 month pregant swelling stomach.

But the solution? Ah! there is always a catch.

Its a tablet that means I can no longer drink alcohol.

Humph.

Now that’s gonna take some getting used to…

Kx