Toilet Fresh!! *PRODUCT REVIEW*

Aquinelle - Toilet Tissue Mist

If you're anything like me, IBD can make you feel unclean and a little less than fresh after a trip to the toilet. Plus to top it off, you can really make yourself sore by the constant wiping when trying to make sure you're clean.

So I tend to carry with me a packet of wet toilet wipes. They're a little embarrassing to carry - for starters they say 'toilet training wipes' on the front of the pack so if anyone does see them, it looks like I have a severe issue of incontencance or some form of inability to use a loo! Plus they're quite bulky (so no little girlie bags!) and the seal doesn't always seal! So therefore they dry out, but not before wetting whatever else I happen to have in my bag.

Anyway, I heard of this toilet mist and was quite excited to give it a go (yes excited - you take little pleasures very seriously when you battle daily with IBD!). When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at how compact it was AND discreet. If anyone does happen to catch a glimpse it just looks like a body mist. Plus (this is the winner for me!) girlie bags are go!! No more bulk - the compact spray means that you can carry it around with you easily - not taking up too much space and you don't have to worry about it leaking and getting your belongings wet. So appearance and aesthetics get a big 10/10 from me!

Next, it's performance. A bit of a girlie point to make but I have to be careful with anything that could upset my pH balance down below - leading to the lovely likes of Thrush (sense the sarcasm!) - so to me, this was going to make or break the product. And to my relief, no upset followed. The mist is gentle and so so refreshing. To top it off, when you spray it onto the tissue, it doesn't cause the tissue to breakdown when you wipe. So it really is a discreet and refreshing toilet buddy!

Just to mix things up a little, they come in different fragrances. I currently have 'Citrus Burst' and 'Rainforest' - the latter being my favourite. One for at home and one for my handbag when I'm out and about!

In summary, I would definitely recommend trying this product. It keeps you clean and refreshed on the go, it's a handy travel-sized spray, and it beats wet toilet wipes hands down - both in a performance sense and a practical one. I know it makes my IBD toilet experiences more pleasant! And as I said earlier, it's the simple, little pleasures that make fighting this daily battle more bearable.

Much Love,

Samantha-Rose XO

The Ride of my Life: How it all Started

So, following on from my last blog, I'll go into the complications I experienced after the operation and how much this affected my life at the time.

Back in the end of June/beginning of July 2010, after my right hemi-colectomy, I woke up in hospital and felt like a human tube station! I had tubes going in, going out - just everywhere!! One in particular went down my throat, I think this one was to drain bile from my stomach, but it hurt my throat so much!! When I first woke up after the operation, I remember feeling searing pain in my lower back - never mind the fact that I'd just been cut open and had part of my bowel removed - so I asked for something to ease the pain.

Once back on the ward, I found that my legs were slowly going numb - I was panicking, wondering why I was unable to move them - when the anaesthetist came to me and said that it sounded like the epidural wasn't functioning in the right way for me. He took me off it and put me on a morphine syringe - I was given a button that administered morphine into a vein but no matter how many times I pressed it, it would only inject every 5-10 minutes. Thankfully, the feeling in my legs came back within a couple hours!

As days passed, I began feeling a little more like myself - although everything I ate seemed to cause me to be sick. I started to feel sick whenever it was time to eat and, low and behold, if I wasn't sick during meal times then you could count on the fact that shortly after, I would be - to the point where it was just green bile! I remember telling my mam that I was so scared the operation had made me anorexic!!

While this was all happening, the bottom staples on my belly popped out and a collection of blood and puss seeped it's way out of the gaping hole in my stomach! It had become infected and, due to the fact that no drain was put in me, all of the 'goop' needed to escape somehow. So the surgeon asked the nurses to cut away the rest of my staples - and I was left with a huge hole that needed to be 'packed' daily by nurses so that is could heal from the bottom upwards.

Slowly but surely, I came around to food and, although still feeling sickly, I managed to stomach food at meal times and keep it down so they discharged me and I went home, having to be visited every day by the district nurses to pack my wound. So home time - Yaaaaaayyyyy!!

Now I was an extremely active girl doing all my entertainment gigs so staying in hospital was like torture to me - not able to do much aside from lying in bed, looking out the window and wishing I could go out and enjoy the summer sun! So going home was such a relief for me!

About a week later, my boyfriend at the time took me out to a Chinese all you can eat - because I'd lost so much weight in hospital (I went down to a UK size 4/6 - when healthy I'm a UK size 10), I didn't eat much. Then, the following night my Mam and Dad bought me a chicken kebab which I LOVE so much!! But something was wrong - I couldn't stomach it at all and hardly touched it.

Mam & Dad dished out some trifle to try and get me to eat but I just couldn't. Shortly after, I vomited badly! I told my parents that it could be a one-off and not to worry about it. I went to bed that night and when I woke up, I was just so sick. I was pretty much projectile vomiting constantly!!

Mam got the on call doctor to visit the house and take a look at me - quicker than I knew what to do with myself, an ambulance arrived and I was en route back into hospital.

When I saw one of the doctors, my heart broke as they told me I'd have to be admitted for a second time. I was in tears - upset and broken hearted at the thought of spending an unknown amount of time in that place again.

Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life at what I soon began to call the 'place of torture & pain' (I.e. The hospital!!).

Well this has been a rather long entry so I will leave it there for now!! Next blog I will get into the complications and hopefully some of you can relate and maybe it could help you going through something similar!

Much Love
Samantha-Rose XO

My 1st Blog

Ok, so in therapy I was told to keep a mood journal to keep on top of my depression, but the thought never crossed my mind to publish it into a blog that could ultimately help others going through the same or similar issues as me.

Until now!

So where to start - since this is my first blog, I see it only fair to give a quick background of myself and then outline what I want to blog about and why.

First things first, my name is Samantha-Rose and I am 28 years old. I have always worked, be it part-time when I was at college/uni or full-time, since the age of 16 (until recently!) and used to do part-time work as an entertainer for 7 years, including things like podium dancing, stilt walking, fire eating/breathing, and angle grinder dancing. I hope to go back to this when I am well enough!

Now the main bit - I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease back in 2008, when I was 21. After daily bouts of pain that affected every single aspect of my life,  I was rushed into A&E in 2010 with a blockage in my bowel. I couldn't physically go to the loo for a 'number 2' and it had been like this for 2 weeks so I was in agony! After a week of being in hospital, nil by mouth and on a saline drip, I was taken down to surgery first thing in the morning and I had my first operation to remove the affected part of my bowel. It turned out that more bowel was affected than the surgeon first anticipated and performed what they called a 'right hemi-colectomy'.

I experienced many complications after that but I won't go into that now - I'm sure I'll get to blog about that soon enough!

So, present day, I'm still in pain daily and fighting a never ending battle against IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease). I recently set up a Twitter account @fightagainstibd which is to provide support, advice and generally a shoulder to cry on for when others need it. I found such a great IBD community and support structure on there - it really helped me to realise that I am a FIGHTER and not a SUFFERER.

I reached 1,000 followers yesterday and it was only then that I thought to myself that sharing my experiences could help others, raise awareness and also aid in any research out there! All points which would give my disease a positive meaning!

So here we are! I plan to post further blogs about my ups, downs and ongoing battle with Crohn's Disease. Hopefully parts will make you laugh and smile, but mainly it will allow you to see that you are never alone. No matter what you're going through, you can count on the fact that loads of people have gone through similar, if not the same, things too. And that goes for how you're thinking and feeling too.

Well, this is the end of my first blog - all that's left is my sign off!

Much love,
Samantha-Rose XO