And so it begins...

I'll start this off with a little about me and how I got to where I am today...

When I was 12 years old we moved into a house my mum and dad built, it was not yet complete and so we had concrete floors and no window treatments
Once my folks had saved enough money they finnished off the house, this included glueing the carpets, scotch guarding them, lacquering the timber door/window frames and painting the walls...
All this in a space of a week or so played havoc with my health
I was violently Ill and from this time forward I began to get hay fever every day and asthma whenever I did any physical activity
I was on countless medications to stop my nose running but nothing seemed to last long term, and those that seemed to help ie phenergan etc just made me sleepy
To say functioning at school was a mission is an understatement!
When I was 14 I had a nasty bout of whooping cough that lasted a good 6 months or more, I recall some of the coughing attacks lasting for minutes at a time not being able to breathe, it was horrid
I was always a fit kid, went for long jogs, was in my high school cross country team, always did well at athletics carnivals, I danced 2-3 times a week from about the age of 4

Fast forward to when I was 16, we moved to WA from our home town of Phillip island VIC
I remember being in yr 11 at my new school and about half way through that year my health started going downhill
I recall having constant diarrhoea and needing to go to the toilet frequently, also when I popped off (flatulance) it was VERY smelly!
As funny as this sounds it was a pain in the arse (literally)
Mum took me to the doctor to which they tried a few different medications none of which made any difference
I was then referred to a gastroenterologist in the city to try and find out what was going on
I recall one time at my place of work, it was a Thursday night, I needed to go to the toilet and had about 5 people lined up at my aisle, I asked the supervisor if I could go (she knew that at any time I might need to go due to my health problem) she however told me to wait (omg the pain of it) I then asked again and she said no, then I could wait no longer so I apologized to my customers an started the (seemed forever) walk to the toilets, I didn't make it in time.
I got to the toilets, tried best I could to clean up the mess I made, and then had to go back to my checkout to cash up the till.
I went home that night completely embarrassed (I don't think anyone knew what happened but I was 16 and self conscious) and I was totally distressed, I couldn't front up for my next shift nor any more after that as the thought of going back there made me feel sick, I couldn't tell them why tho!
Not long after this happened we moved to Perth, I started at a new school however had constant diarrhea still, I was going through all sorts of tests, colonoscopy, lots of blood tests, and finally a liver biopsy and LFT bloods, the LFT's were up near 2000 (normal is 30) and by this stage I was becoming jaundice, the gastro diagnosed auto immune chronic active hepatitis
I was told I'd more than likely never have kids, I'd need a transplant and would probably not live to see 25! (I'm currently 33 with 2 beautiful kids, how wrong he was!!)
I don't recall much from this time as I was pretty shell shocked by his diagnosis but I still vividly remember the stinky farts and the 1/2 hr trips to the toilet!
Around the age of 20 I fell pregnant with my daughter (needless to say i wasnt too careful on the contraception front as i was told its unlikely id ever be a mum) i decided at this time i needed a new specialist as the one I had I didn't like and he was a bit creepy!
That's when I met Dr Gary Jeffrey!