Chapter 7 - The Long Road Down
I started planning our move to Sicily with the obsessive attention to detail that drives Marco nuts. Trello boards. Expense spreadsheets. Emails upon emails upon emails.
We still had my housemate back in the UK, so we rented out our room to help cover the mortgage and bills. It’s amazing how much organising had to be done just to leave the country for six months.
Getting ready to go
My hair had finally started growing back – short tufts sprouting all over my head like a patchy lawn. Luckily, I’d lost it fairly evenly, so I could hide the regrowth. Nobody really noticed, or they were too polite to mention it.
I’d come off the SCD diet and was eating relatively normally, excluding the big hitters: dairy, gluten, and sugar. The supplements I was taking to “optimise” everything, on the other hand, seemed to multiply daily. I was still seeing Jessica Robinson, my homoeopath, and Houri, my acupuncturist. I was determined to be in the best possible place before we left.
My business was still thriving, so I was busy on all fronts.
Marco found a two-bedroom flat in central Catania that would accept our cat, Dory. So I coordinated plans, timetables, cleared out our room, packed, decided what to take, organised Dory’s travel, managed my clients, kept Marco on track – the list was endless.
Looking back, I wonder why it felt like such a juggling act. But as always, until you’re in it, you don’t realise all the moving parts. I was working, coordinating, problem-solving, and pivoting when things didn’t work out, or people let us down. It’s more complicated than it looks from the outside.
Just before we left, my IBD started triggering again. This was the first time I realised stress could be a direct trigger. But it was manageable, not enough to send me running for the toilets.
My period was still MIA.
The epic drive
We set off early on a Saturday morning. All our belongings crammed in the boot, Dory wearing a harness on the back seat with her litter tray, food, water, and her favourite cat bed. Due to high winds in the Mediterranean and being ghosted by an Airbnb host, we ended up having to drive straight through.
That’s over 2,500 kilometres. In one go.
Dance Monkey by Tones and I became our anthem. I had a whole sack of food at my feet. Marco at the wheel, Dory in the back, and our life in the boot. We were ready.
The boot is long. So. Long. I was losing the will to live. We’d get Google Maps prompts like “in 500 kilometres, continue straight.” By the time we reached the toe of Italy, I was going to lose it if Google said “500 kilometres until” anything else.
Marco and I took turns driving so the other could sleep, with Dory strapped in on our laps. When we finally arrived Sunday afternoon, I was so relieved I could have cried. We’d been going for 30 hours straight. We were both reaching our absolute limit.
All that was left was for me to set up for work the next day.
In hindsight, I wish there was something else we’d done that day, too.
Berlin and growing symptoms
In January 2020, we flew to Berlin for a friend’s birthday. We had a fabulous time and took the opportunity to hit pause and really enjoy ourselves.
But as always, eating in a group with my dietary requirements was difficult. Not being able to eat too late (terrible for IBD) meant we never ate with the others. My anxiety about eating out and being a burden had started increasing. It wouldn’t peak until the following year, but the seeds were already planted.
My symptoms had gotten worse since arriving in Sicily. I’d discovered Oxypowder capsules the previous year – they’d helped clear my bowels back in March 2019 before my flexi sigmoidoscopy. So I turned to them again, using them to flush through and clear inflammation.
Funny thing, I’d completely forgotten these capsules had helped me in the first place. I thought I discovered them later. Thank you, digital footprint, for the reminder.
The appointment that changed everything
When we returned from Berlin, we decided to move forward with trying for a baby. We went to see Marco’s family GP, who happened to be an obstetrician and gynaecologist.
He was proper old school. Actually listened to what we had to say. I tried adding to Marco’s explanations when I could (my Italian was still pretty basic). The doctor asked pertinent questions and actually listened to the answers before forming opinions.
He asked me to drink a litre of water, then he’d do a sonogram.
I did as instructed and sat in the waiting room with Marco, anxiously trying not to run off to the toilet.
The gel was cold. I tried making sense of what was on the screen while the doctor talked to Marco in rapid Italian. Words came up that you don’t normally have in casual conversation, so I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. I wiped off the gel, got down from the examination table, and we sat at his desk.
Then Marco turned to me and said:
“You’re still ovulating. You’ve released an egg. You’re just not menstruating. We need to go to the fertility clinic so they can do something about it and get my sperm checked.”
Vindication
I was overjoyed.
I knew it. Houri knew it. Jessica knew it.
Until now, doctors had written me off as menopausal. Dismissed because I was over 40. But I’d been right all along.
I felt triumphant.
We paid 60 euros for the scan and left.
A note about this writing
It’s funny – the previous chapters, up until now, I’d written years ago and simply reviewed before publishing. This is the first one I’m writing from notes and records, and it’s HARD. I can still feel that person sitting there in the family doctor’s office, that mix of vindication and frustration and desperate hope.
Anyway, I digress.
Loss and lockdown looming
I lost my Grandad around that time, so we flew back to the UK for the funeral. I was juggling clients and workload, so I could take time off.
COVID had started rumbling in the background. Eight cases in Brighton. Cases were growing in Northern Italy. But it still felt distant, like something happening to other people.
When we got back from the UK, we went to the clinic to get Marco’s “soldiers” evaluated. All good there. Then we booked an appointment with the fertility clinic that the doctor had recommended.
The consultant who wouldn't listen
I remember it like it was yesterday.
By this point, I’d gotten used to explaining my bowel issues and medical history in Italian with Marco’s support. But this consultant sounded exactly like the UK GPs.
Menopause. He kept coming back to menopause.
He wanted to do blood tests and make his judgment based on those.
I was trying to push him to scan me. He wouldn’t.
I explained I didn’t have any other menopause symptoms. He didn’t care.
I explained what I’d been through – couldn’t it be fight-or-flight? He didn’t really respond.
I was desperately trying to get him to listen in a language I didn’t fully command yet. Marco stepped in to help and support my voice.
We left with instructions for blood analysis.
This was 7pm on a Friday.
Hope dissolving
The hope I’d felt was beginning to dissolve. But Marco tried lifting me up, explaining that it depended on a couple of results, not just one. He wasn’t sure which ones – he wasn’t used to reading these tests. He found a clinic open on Saturday.
We went. We waited. We got the results.
They weren’t good.
He sent them to the consultant via WhatsApp.
The consultant responded: No further treatment. (It was worded more softly than that, but that was the reality.)
I protested again. Didn’t change his mind.
I contacted Jessica in a panic. Help! Could this really be it? What could I do? How could I help myself?
The walls go up
The next day, COVID hit hard.
The walls went up across Italy.
We were trapped with nowhere to go, and my fertility window was apparently closing for good.