It started with a stomach pain.

In 1999 I started getting very bad stomach pains and as sods law goes my wife had gone to visit her parents in Germany and I was alone. The pain hit me very suddenly one night about an hour after supper, it was a pain I had never known or suffered before. It was truly a crippling pain that had me wriggling on the floor like a worm unable to sleep all night. I didn't know what hit me. Eventually, about 6am, the pain had subsided enough for me to be able to go to sleep.When I woke up a couple of hours later, it had gone completely, even after eating breakfast the pain did not return. I thought that was that and thanked my lucky stars. Maybe I had eaten something that didn't agree with me or the food was "bad". Little did I know at the time that I would go on suffering with this pain for another 4 years.

After lunch that day I had some pain again, not as painful as the night before but the pain would not go away no matter what I did. It got worse after supper and I was again wriggling on the floor all night long. Maybe a stomach bug, I thought, it'll go away eventually.

After suffering with daily pains for about a week, it was time to pay my GP a visit. He gave me some medication but had to go back after a few days because it didn't help to ease the pain at all. He gave me some other meds and sent me for an stomach x-ray, it showed nothing, the meds didn't help either. On my next visit a few days later he referred me to a consultant at the local hospital. Got new meds to try, didn't help at all except to make me "high". A battery of tests followed, more x-rays, blood tests and more blood tests for various things that could cause the pain. The consultant then ordered an Endoscopy.

After some wait I finally got a date for the Endoscopy. All I remember about the test is getting changed, going in to the room, the Doc telling me about what he is going to do, being given a sedative, waking up and the Doc to telling me:

"You gave us a fright in there, a bit of an emergency".

All I could say was: "HUH?"

"You stopped breathing during the test, your lips had turned blue so we had to stop and get you breathing again".

I was shocked and still under the influence of the sedative only could just about mumble "Ohh, so what now?"

"It's for your consultant to decide" he said and walked away.

I got dressed and the wife drove me home. The next day I was still feeling confused and upset that nothing was found that could be fixed but at the same time glad that they didn't find anything that could not be fixed.

The consultant did the second Endoscopy himself but decided to investigate further and also did a Colonoscopy to rule out any colon disease which could also be the cause of the stomach pains. These tests didn't show nothing either, not even an inflammation. After seeing the consultant for about 4 years I got fed up of going to the hospital every 3 months and nothing was found that would help ease my pain. I'm sure the consultant thought I was lying to him, I could see it in his "changed" attitude towards me everytime I visited him (or so I thought anyway).

At the next visit the consultant told me that he was going to refer me to a cardiologist

"because"

he said

"sometimes heart problems could be mistaken for stomach pains".

I walked out of the room fuming and totally disgusted with him, I was sure he was just trying to get rid of me by "dumping" me on to someone else.

"That idiot, he doesn't know anything." I said to myself.

"There's nothing wrong with my heart. What has heart problems got to do with stomach pains. I am going to put in a strong complaint about him. etc...etc...etc".

I'm sure most of us thought/think like this when we KNOW that the Doctors are WRONG!

After all, I was getting stomach pains after meals not after exertion, so he was WRONG.....DEAD £$&*^% WRONG!

WRONG he was NOT.

oooops, sorry Doc.