This photo popped up on my facebook page memories a few days ago, from 6 years ago.. at first I didn’t think much of it, and then I realised why it actually has a great deal of importance.. 3 months before this photo I had moved to Malmö, a new city where I barely knew anyone. I felt very lonely. I hadn’t been feeling well most of December but didn’t think much to it. I usually shake it off and say it will pass and then get used to feeling that way.. but this seemed to carry on. The new year came and I ended the relationship I was in, which made me feel even more lonely as I didn’t even have him around. I joked about my weight loss being due to heartbreak, but little did I know at the time, that I was actually ill. Yes the photo shows my trousers being quite a bit too big, but my weight loss wasn’t quite as dramatic as it seems, my trousers just needed washing and were therefore a bit extra baggy.. but I had lost quite a lot (even though I look rather toned, it wasn’t intentional). The next few months I slowly deteriorated. I got weaker and weaker. I had various random infections in other mucus membrane body parts. Haha that really just made me laugh out loud, I don’t even know if that makes any sense to anyone else but me hahaha. Either way, I went through a lot of backs and forths, with more trips to the GP than ever before, being passed around and sort of shaken off for all the various things, never being looked at as a whole as one person with multiple symptoms, thinking my weight loss was due to loneliness and a broken heart, and everything else just very random unfortunate reactions, when in reality it was undiagnosed Ulcerative Colitis. I started getting ill in November and wasn’t admitted to hospital until may, when I was finally diagnosed. During all these months I never really shared my symptoms, I never really told anyone quite how bad I was, or what was going on. Little did I know that this was the start of a whole new chapter of my life, with experiences I never in a million years could have dreamed of, thought of, or worried about.. But I’m still here, and I’m still fighting, and I’m still doing what I can to help raise awareness, help support and just generally do what I can.

So please, please, please, if you are bleeding from places you shouldn’t be, or feeling ill and have other symptoms which seem out of the ordinary, then please make sure you get checked out.