Posting about my journey isn't me looking for attention, its just me posting about what I do, ju

For those of you who have know me for a while you will know that when I first became unwell I kept everything private, hospital appointments, tests and even hospital admissions where all kept to my self. There were a few reasons why I did this, Firstly I didn't want people to think I was just doing it for attention by posting anything on social media, I didn't want people asking "what is wrong?" as this is a really hard question to answer when most doctors don't really understand, finally I was embarrassed, saying this know seems so silly but back when I first become unwell I felt embarrassed as my illness made me different form everyone else and I thought I wouldn't fit in anymore for not been normal.

As time went on and my health declined, I could no longer hide things form my friends any longer as they just knew me too well to hide anything. My friends where all really understanding which I'm so thankful for, I gradually started by telling my closest friends and asking them to explain to some of the others. My friends where really nice about everything and really understanding although they only understood what I had told them as everything is just too complex to begin trying to explain, so I was selective over the things to explain making it as simple as possible.

Overtime time I got more and more unwell and it began to become noticeable to people around as I was having longer hospital admissions and also having tubes across your face is a BIG giveaway that your unwell.

When having tubes first placed and living with my conditions I found it really hard to go out of the house, as you can imagine the stares I got for having tubes on my face. However through social media I became in contact with a few teenage girls that had the same conditions going on and had tubes the same as me. The girls had taken a different approach than me though, they had publically posted their journeys right from the beginning. They posted pictures in hospital and updates on what doctors had said etc. This made me start to re think why I was keeping everything private when ignoring the issues wasn't making things goes away.

I started to think about it more and decided that I would begin to post about my "medical life" on social media as everyone else gets to post about their lives, such as going for meals and shopping with friends. So why couldn't I post about my life? Just because it was different from everyone else's it didn't mean I should keep it secret.

So now I had a boost in my confidence from meeting some amazingly strong girls, I now had the confidence to leave the house with my tubes and sometimes with my feed pump an not feel embarrassed. I also wasn't bothered anymore about doing my meds in public and been scared about what people would think.

Recently I've been able to post about some of the complications from been unwell and post things about what happen in my day to day "medical" life . Posting and talking about things has really given that bit more confidence as I'm not trying to keep things hidden.

So finally I have created my own blog! who'd have thought it, people have been telling me for ages to start a blog to document my life and as a coping method. However I've decided to also make this blog as I feel there is a big divide between a "normal" persons day to day living and my day to day living.

So hopefully this blog wont just help me personally ,but it will also help raise awareness for the conditions I suffer with(which ill explain in a future post) but also give you an insight of what its like trying to live a "normal" life with the barriers my health has put in the way and remind people, posting about my journey isn't me looking for attention its just me posting about what I do, just as everybody else does.

Evie x