Michelle Grant, 44, from Runcorn, experienced an accident at work...
Scanning items on the checkout machine, it didn’t stop. I was working the tills at a busy bargain store in October 2019 and felt like my hands were going to drop off.
I don’t feel good, I thought. And I must have passed out as the next thing I remember was the sound of Warrington Hospital ambulance crew standing over me.
‘You’ve had a seizure, Michelle,’ they told me.
Oh God, I’ve never had a seizure in my life, I thought.
I was taken to hospital and kept on the ward overnight.
‘We want to ensure your brain is OK,’ the doctors said.
It was all such a blur – I don’t remember much.
My brain scans came back normal and my seizure was put down to me being stressed.
Trusting the doctor’s opinions, I placed my worries to the back of my mind – for the next year everything was fine.
But in April 2020 I had another seizure in my sleep.
Once again I had no idea what had happened, but my adult daughter told me our dog Bella had alerted her.
‘She was scratching my bedroom door,’ she said after. ‘When I came in, I saw you fitting and I called you an ambulance.’
It was lucky she lived with me as otherwise Imay not have known. I was taken back to hospital where doctors thought I might be epileptic, and prescribed me some medication to try – which made me constipated.
I called the doctors to tell them about my constipation, but they put my symptoms down to the meds I was trying.
Desperately trying to get home from work one day, I needed the toilet – but I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I pooed myself.
What’s more, something was wrong with my stool.
It was bloody and smelt horrible – like iron.
In fact, my whole body reeked of that bloody smell.
'Is that cancer?' I asked the doctor
I could smell it in my mucus, even seeping out my pores. And whenever I broke wind, bloody mucus would excrete into my underwear, too.
This really isn’t right, I thought. This isn’t side effects.
In July 2020 I met my first grandson, Ollie – I was over the moon, he was perfect.
But still something was very wrong with my bowels.
Calling the doctors back, I had numerous phone appointments, before I had an examination and a blood test, too.
‘I’m going to refer you for a colonoscopy, as it could be something like bowel cancer,’ the doctor said.
I felt completely shocked, but when my blood tests came back fine, any worries I had eased away.
I went for my colonoscopy on 6 November 2020.
But l
