Category Archives: invisible illness

I turn 30 this month and the thought of that it is making me incredibly reflective. Not many people like getting older but I can’t say that it is something that has ever really bothered me. Until getting ill that is. I was diagnosed in November 2010, just three days before my birthday. So youContinue reading “A whole new decade”

It is unfathomable to me, at times, that the person who has just had to be helped out after a bath because her arms couldn’t push her own body weight up, and the person who joined in so much over the weekend with what everyone else was doing is in fact the same person; me.Continue reading “Sink or swim”

Bravery is different things to different people. To me, bravery has come to be showing people the reality of my illness. Face to face. Not from behind a screen. Almost 8 years in and I am still learning how to do this. For the most part when I am ‘properly ill’ I am simply tooContinue reading “Bravery”

Related blog post >>> Worthy of Help I’ve had my Personal Assistant for a whole year now. I had no idea that I would qualify for the help I so badly needed to live ‘independently’. That social care referral was well worth the almost 12 month wait after that initial teary phone call asking forContinue reading “One year on – PA Days”

M.E. Awareness week has been and gone and so too has my own annual fundraising and awareness-raising effort. My ‘Blue Sunday’ tea party was a success once again and each year I have to pinch myself that it is so well supported and so much money is raised. The car park was so full thisContinue reading “Same time next year?”

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well perhaps the same is true when it comes to those who are chronically ill. The burden of M.E. is too much for one ‘carer’ to bear. Both the sufferer and their partner need a whole heap of support but it is perhaps the non-suffererContinue reading “It takes a village…”

Following the link below will take you to the BBC I player website where you can watch a 30 minute documentary about what it is really like to live with M.E. Talking with Mr Tree Surgeon this morning, we’ve concluded that now even my own parents get a highly filtered version of my everyday suffering.Continue reading “M.E. and me. A BBC documentary.”