What to Know
If you’re a parent, you know that it takes a ton of time, effort, and usually a large amount of money to be able to plan your dream vacation. Now, what if you were finally sitting by the beach with the love of your life and your whole world suddenly turned upside down?
A mom was on vacation with her partner in Egypt when she started to feel very sick halfway through their trip. Due to the severe stomach pain and vomiting, she was taken to an Egyptian hospital and had her appendix removed. It turns out that the doctors there misdiagnosed her health issue. She’s since been diagnosed with a life-altering medical condition she has to live with indefinitely.
While on vacation, a mom of two fell sick and was told she needed her appendix removed, but that wasn’t the case.
Twenty-nine-year-old, Sian Irving, was just trying to enjoy a dream vacation in Sharm El Sheikh with her partner, Jack Jackson, for his birthday when things took an abrupt turn that would change everything for her health-wise.
According to LADbible.com, the mom of two was vacationing in Egypt for 10 days when she started having severe stomach pain, a super high fever, and vomiting. She recalls the immense pain she started to experience. “It started slowly. I began feeling really hot, and then the stomach pains came. The pain was unbelievable. It felt like my insides were being stabbed and ripped apart at the same time,” she said.
Sian explained that they did some scans at the hospital in Egypt and at first, they couldn’t really see anything. They then told her she had an appendicitis and performed surgery to remove her appendix.
Little did she know, her health was about to get worse.
When she returned home, she learned that the operation had changed her life.
According to The Sun UK, when she returned home to the UK, she lost a lot of weight, as she was once a size 10 and dropped to a size 6. Her doctors in the UK told her that her illness while abroad was likely caused by food poisoning and she never needed her appendix removed.
After a traumatic plane ride home that included still feeling incredibly sick, Sian was admitted to Exeter Hospital and spent five nights undergoing tests and treatment, per The Sun UK.
She told LADbible.com that “at one point, [she] was told [she] could die if [her] condition didn’t improve. After the surgery, [she] still had the same symptoms.”
Her doctors finally diagnosed her with colitis, which she’d actually never heard of before. “It affects your large intestine and causes inflammation. You have pain, you need the toilet a lot and it’s embarrassing because it’s not something people really want to talk about,” she told The Sun UK.
Going on her dream holiday has taken a toll on her overall health and life at home with her kids.
Sian shared with LADbible.com that even though things have gotten somewhat better, it’s “been really difficult.” She’s really had to change up her diet after the colitis diagnosis because some foods she simply cannot tolerate anymore. “If I eat certain foods, I can end up looking nine months pregnant because of the bloating,” she told LADbible.com.
The mom of two also shared with the entertainment and news outlet that her condition has also affected her ability to care for her children. “There was a point where I couldn’t even pick my kids up. They now spend time with both their dad and me, and thankfully, I can do a lot more than I could before,” she shared.
She still struggles with tiredness and sleepless nights and she also has a permanent scar that’s affected her confidence. She told The Sun UK that nearly a year later, she “never imagined to have all of this” and to still be “dealing with it every single day.”
It’s incredible how a misdiagnosis can completely upend one’s life.
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