Hey! My names Megan and I’m 21 from Belfast, NI.

When I was 17 I was rushed into hospital with severe weight loss, going to the toilet up to 30 times in an hour, vomiting, shaking and low blood pressure. I was diagnosed about a week later with ulcerative colitis. My first hospital stay lasted nearly 4 weeks trying to get my symptoms under control without the need for surgery as it was all very fast and unexpected.

Thankfully the consultant I was under put me onto biological treatments straight away with steroids, for about a year after I was in the hospital nearly every other week for 2-3 weeks at a time. I trialled a further 3 biologics during then, but unfortunately, nothing was working to control my symptoms.

When I was 18 I had emergency ileostomy surgery. The surgery itself had further complications and due to me being so underweight and ill my body went into Ketoacidosis and it took me months to recover properly and put weight back on. I hated life so much I was a young 18 year old girl who had to miss their first girls’ holiday to Magaluf because of an illness that had already taken so much from me. (Priorities at that age lol)


meals


After a few months I had my life back – I was going out, I felt a lot more confident in myself and I was a completely different person and loved life again!
Then just as I felt like I was getting back on my feet at 19 I had even more pain than before as whatever parts of my bowel were left behind still had disease giving me similar symptoms than before high temperatures, shivering, vomiting and a lot of mucus and blood from the back end. I then went in for a second emergency surgery to make my bag permanent and remove my rectum. As it was during Covid my mum was only allowed in one hour a week.. it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to recover from I could barely walk, eat or even wash myself. It took me months to ever feel ‘right’ after. It was a massive surgery and took a lot to emotionally recover as well as physically.
Thankfully, a year and a half later I’ve never been happier. I can do everything I wanted and more. I still have my bad days like everyone does, but no one is alone and I’ve tried to dedicate my Instagram to make people with physical differences to feel confident and happy within their bodies and educate others about IBD. I’d love for everyone to be able to speak about their conditions openly as it would make it far easier to come to terms with and mentally process things.
@megancmcneill – Instagram


meals