A Laois mother-of-four who previously beat cancer will have to wait over two years for a biopsy on stomach troubles she has been enduring for 20 years.
Serena Guilfoyle from Portlaoise had some of her bowel removed and then at 13 had a biopsy done which said she had coeliac disease.
She started a gluten free diet, which she said did make some difference.
She told her story on the Will Faulkner Show on Midlands Radio 3 earlier this week.
“I’m terrified of that long wait because my oncologist told me, up in Dublin, that if you are a coeliac and it’s left untreated – it can cause cancer. So that’s why I am afraid,” she told the presenter.
Trouble
Serena has had tummy trouble over 20 years and had to have part of her bowel removed when she was 11 in hopes of removing any source of the pain.
She continued to have problems with her bowels and when she went back to the clinic the doctor said that “he wasn’t there to listen to pains he was just there to check the scar”.
“At thirteen I had a biopsy done and it said that I had coeliac disease and I had to start a gluten free diet – I hadn’t got bad pains and then I moved out of home a few years later and I wasn’t doing the diet because I was on my own.”
Selena’s diet got sidetracked by her pregnancy and this meant she ate things which should she be suffering from coeliac’s disease, would cause her more pain.
“It’s only certain foods that I eat that would cripple me,” she said.
For example, she can’t tolerate bread but some curries are fine and others cause her discomfort.
Unfortunately, in recent years she had to battle breast cancer.
Antibodies
During her treatment last year she got her blood tests done and discovered that the antibodies needed to combat coeliac disease were perfectly fine.
She didn’t appear to be suffering from the disease whatsoever.
The biopsy is now required to determine if she is a coeliac. “My dietitian told me this is the golden key to tell you if you do or you don’t,” she said.
“I just wish that I was called in,” she said. “You can go private but it will cost loads of money,” she added.
She said she is paranoid because of her health concerns, causing her to worry on the blood transfusion she received during her chemotherapy treatment.
Her GP has told her that she over analyses everything and her mental health could suffer on account of these concerns.
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