I brought a house, got burgled, then had emergency open surgery all within a couple of months

The past few months have been big.

I brought my own first house a week after I had become an amazon best seller with my book Discipline Decoded

It is a rather nice house if a do say so myself

Moving in with my girlfriend who is sitting her finals to become a doctor next year, so safe to say she was super stressed.

Then a month after moving in together, we were badly burgled.

All French doors smashed up for a month, meaning heating was non-existent through a cold October and November. Wonderful.

Finally, a couple weeks back the doors were sorted from the insurance company.

A week later, I’m in A&E, it was Tuesday evening, I had battled through moderate pain that still, at points left me curled up in the foetal position on the floor from Monday evening.

I don’t go to A&E or even the doctors unless it’s pretty damn serious
Hell, I don’t even pop a parectomol for a broken bone.
But …

I was crying on my knees in agony 

A grown man crying 

This was a pain so, so deep I didn’t know what to do 

It left me unable to think clearly, a pain where I aimed to stab a knife in my hand to just to reduce the feeling I had in my stomach

No rational thinking at all, and thinking rational is something I pride myself 
I would have paid £10million and been in debt the rest of my life to get rid of the pain in my stomach.

And it happened not once, but every single evening of the week 
Multiple trips to A&E, me asking to be taken there, and each time being sent home with misdiagnosis of ‘gastritis’ and then a stomach ulcer, both in my head I knew wasn’t right but I didn’t have the energy to argue with a qualified doctor.

I wasn’t eating anything but tiny portion sizes, really tiny period sizes during the week in fear of the pain

2-3 small bites of chicken and broccoli 
and half a small sachet of oats with kefir milk for my gut after the diagnosis of gastritis 

Something in my head told me the diagnosis was wrong, I knew wasn’t right, I knew it wasn’t but who was I to say doctors are wrong? 

My girlfriend who has her finals in just 2 weeks and is that far from being a qualified doctor from Cambridge University herself helped a lot but even she couldn’t know what it was without seeing my bloods from A & E
Friday I begin throwing up with pain despite chucking back all kinds of pain killers.

I don’t throw up ever. I haven’t thrown up for years, but this pain was too much.

I hate the feeling of throwing up, but I began looking forward to it as it helped take my mind off the pain for the time I was throwing up (from the pain)

There wasn’t much inside me as I had hardly eaten all week, mostly bile coming out at this point.

I pride myself with my good health. I do things every day to make sure I feel good. 

Fast forward to today, Thursday 10 days on from my first stomach attack, I’ve been told I can’t do activity for 8 weeks.

I have scaring from open surgery across my belly. 

6 days for them to get me into having my surgery 
52 hours after realising it was more serious than a stomach ulcer
52 hours after me screaming for more morphine and my life, passing out with pain and going the most unbearable pain anyone can experience for 11 hours straight. 

The surgery was planned to be an emergency laproscopic appendicectomy, but ended up being open surgery and took longer due to having a congenital defect in the bowel called a meckles diverticulum.

This was taken out with my appendix; something about it bleeding or perforating. 

Meckel’s for those who don’t know, as I’ve certianly never heard of the bloke, is an outpouching or bulge in the lower part of the small intestine.

The bulge is congenital (present at birth) and is a leftover of the umbilical cord and is present in only 2% of the population. Most don’t ever have a problem with it being there.. I mean, always knew I was special..

All I remember from surgery is going in and I couldn’t wait to go in after waiting in hospital for so long.

And then being woken up, feeling a pain I wasn’t expecting to feel, throwing up again from the pain and asking to see my girlfriend while being injected in my canula(s) with anti-sickness and painkillers multiple times while I breathed heavily trying not to puke again.

If I’m honest I was too drugged up on morphine and everything else I was given to have taken in what the doctor told me the morning after surgery.

To make matters worse the doctor came in while I was sat naked, shaking in pain, with a very uncomfortable feeling in my penis, a catheter had been stuck up my ding dong due to being unable to pass piss the night after surgery. Lovely. 

Anyway, this post is not to get sympathy. It’s really not. I hate being fussed over.

Although I do have many more painfully embarrassing as well as neglectful hospital stories from the last few days, these won’t go on this post. 

This post is a message be thankful for your health, every single day, give thanks for what you have. 

I’m actually typing this smiling to myself now.

If you have fully functioning limbs and no pain

I urge you to see what your body is capable of before it’s too late.
Our bodies are amazing things.

Mentally for me, the hardest thing is not being able to do activity for the next 8 weeks and take it easy.

I will be giving thanks every single day for how supportive my girlfriend, family & clients has been during this time.

Surgery recovery:

I’ll be posting on this blog each week for the next few weeks for anyone else who may have something similar. I’ll also take a picture of my body every week to see how that changes and also if any noticeable muscle loss or fat gain happens over 8 weeks with no training. I’m sure most of it will have happened being in bed not moving for almost a week.

Week 1 of recovery from emergency open surgery:
Discharged yesterday (partly as I wouldn’t stop asking to leave since the day after Surgery)

Had help from my girlfriend showering.. the shame of not being able to bend down to wash your own parts was not fun – thank you Becks.

No better feeling than having a shower having not washed for days, expecially after throwing up so many times, and sleeping around other sick people. 

I’m now sat all day, still in pain, but happy I’m able to do this post and nap. 

Here are a couple of photos

I can currenly walk, very slow, and also like I’ve shat my pants. Yet I can walk which is super. 

Popping painkillers every 4 hours (still on some strong prescription stuff but hoping to slowly get myself off this as soon as possible)

Feel like I want to start work right away again and so thankful to all my amazing clients.

Thank you to my family too for being there and taking care of my dog for me and for all the messages of concern over the past week

Anyway, week 1 of recovery, can’t do much, but can walk like I’ve shat myself. 
I can sit down on a chair on my own and stand up on my own, if I haven’t leant back at all… if I have i need a hand up.

Basically anything that involves using the abs, I have to somehow aviod, and having spent so much of the past 10-15 years engaging them for everything, it’s very difficult to not to do.

Let’s see where I am in a few days time. Hoping I’ll be back to doing everyday stuff as I feel I’m a rather fast recoverer of things 🙂 thanks to my health.

The complications of something like this would have been far far worse, and I’d have been in hospital much longer if I had been overweight, or in poor health & energy. So this if anything, has inspired me to look after my health even more so than before!

Look after your body, your health, your weight and ultimately every other single thing in your life will improve. I guarantee it.