Tag: chronic illness
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The Good of Ills #3: A Place of Rest
I’m sitting in hospital as I write this. For the last 10 years the odds of my words reaching you while holed up in a hospital were high. In fact let me share a hot writing tip with you; struggling to find a chance to focus and hit that deadline? Search out a quiet corner…
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The Good of Ills #1: Sometimes you will get left behind
I am having a lot of sliding door moments these days. What would my life look like? …If I had applied to that job I badly wanted. If I hadn’t been afraid to try something physically demanding. If I had written that book when I said I would. If I hadn’t had that hospital admission…
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Tinder dates from a West London hospital
And now for something a little different. I’m writing a book, yup a real actual book with all the words in it. The working title is: Professional Sick Girl – The untold and unexpected lessons of a lifelong illness. Below is a short extract that explores some of the realities of luurve with a health condition.…
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Why we must talk about illness when it isn’t life or death
I want to take a minute to tell you why Professional Sick Girl exists. It’s true, I like to write; it’s my way of connecting with the world around me. But the reason I write about the things I do is to raise the profile of people with chronic illnesses, and the many different lives…
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How to plan a career when you’re predicted to die in 10 years
I felt guilty writing the title of this post. It’s not something I’d relish reading from a friend or loved one and I can only imagine what it’s like as a parent. But I think people reading this without lived experience of illness need to understand this feeling as much as they possibly can. I…
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Sweet love
It was late. The lights were dimmed. I stared at him. He stared right back. It was always special, but something felt different tonight. He leaned in and I felt my hands get clammy. Up close his eyes were huge. The blood was rushing to my head, all thoughts gone. The butterflies were dancing. Was…
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A lesson in vulnerability
Or, that time I mentioned my wheezy-hamster-lungs in an interview. Unsurprisingly having a life-shortening illness can make you feel a tad vulnerable at times. It can also make you feel like a superhero when you defy the odds. But there’s one context that has always made me feel more vulnerable about having Cystic Fibrosis than…
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Health is everything
Good health is everything. So some people believe. As humans we structure our needs in that well-known colloquialism of ‘[insert life changing challenge e.g. having no job or experiencing a divorce] …but hey at least I have my health’. I would argue that having no job or experiencing the break up of a…
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Professional discrimination with cystic fibrosis. Part I: on TEFL and South Korea
This is a topic I really want to talk about and if I could give any advice to young adults with health conditions it would be this. I suppose it’s about more than work discrimination, it’s about being comfortable with who you are and having the confidence to believe in your abilities, which is definitely…
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“Do anything nice on your day off then?”
…Why yes actually, I spent a very engaging 6 hours in hospital taking part in a first-of-its-kind phase III clinical gene therapy trial. Could have done with an actual day off though, come to think of it. So I’m currently taking part in the UK’s only ongoing major gene therapy trial for Cystic Fibrosis patients.…
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