In 2015 I wrote a blog post explaining my illness and recovery called 'A Good Life' (yourmasterpretender.blogspot.co.uk/2015_07_01_archive.html). It's been almost two years since I was ill. This post is my way of looking back and reminding myself how far I've come. This will be new information to people I've met since being ill, but hopefully you'll be patient and understanding with what I have to say.
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Two years ago, I was at the peak of my illness. I couldn't get out of bed without help, I was in a permanent state of exhaustion and I was sick almost every day. Two years ago, I was too ill to sit my exams. I spent six months not doing anything except the bare minimum; no tennis, no dancing, merely getting out of bed was an achievement. I could barely even laugh without being in pain. Two years ago, my struggle with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis was tearing apart my life and I feared I might never recover. I was told by field professionals that my illness had no proven successful treatment and that I should come to terms with living my life this way. If you can even call it 'living'. Two years ago, I was depressed because of my illness. I was imagining what my life would be like in 10, 20, or 30 years. Would I still need somebody to help me eat a full meal? To get dressed, or to go outside? I wanted to be independent again so badly.
So I did it. I got better. It took an abundance of patience and support and love, which to this day I am endlessly grateful for. After a long and painful battle, I became healthy again. Not only that but I became happy again. Sure, there's still traces of my illness and from time to time I struggle with symptoms. But I know it's okay. I know I'm okay. Something that was so uncertain before, I now know for a fact. I know I'm okay.
Two years on, I finished my A levels with results I couldn't be happier about. I received an offer from my dream university to study my dream subject. Two years on, I'm a Dance & Choreography student at Falmouth University. I was advised by doctors that studying Dance was risky, and they tried their best to scare me away from it. Thank God I didn't listen. Two years on, I'm living in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and I'm living with some of the kindest and purest people I've ever met. Two years on, I'm doing what I love, every single day. Every day I dance for hours on end and I love it more than anything else. I'm surrounded by incredible people, with incredible ideas and stories. I said in my previous post about my illness that I was happier than I'd ever been before, since writing that life just seems to have got better and better, and I am getting happier and happier. Two years on and I'm living a completely different life to what I was before my illness. I am a completely different person. Two years on, I am strong, and I am healthy, and I am so content with life.
Sometimes I think about my illness: I think about what would have happened if, like a lot of M.E. sufferers, I hadn't got better. I think about the effect it had on me and the people around me. I think about it the most when I suffer symptoms. But I feel safe knowing I got through it once, and it was the most difficult experience of my life. I feel confident that after that, I am capable of much more than I once thought. To those people who were standing right next to me when I was ill, the ones who were always ready to help me, the ones who are the reason I got healthy again: two years on and I am still just as grateful to you. My life could have turned out very differently if it weren't for you.
I am forever in your debt, thank you.
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