Due to frequent requests for information about my disease and how I deal with it, I am starting to put together posts about the whole saga. I will list them in the sidebar as and when I update them...
Almost four years ago, I woke up and found a weird, bubbly blister on my arm and within days my chest, back and thighs were covered in an itchy red rash which was explained by my doctor as my body's strange reaction to what may have been something as normal as catching the common cold. Three months of itching and it finally went away. The year that followed was filled with strange stomach aches, a sudden aversion to my contraceptive pill, migraines, headaches, night sweats, dizziness, constant tiredness, and a general feeling of being unwell. In the meantime, the problems in my then relationship with Mr Brown-Suit culminated in a break up which coincided with me graduating, finishing one job, job hunting, starting a new job, moving in with a relative for a month, flat hunting and then moving into a new place. Yes, I was very busy!
In the meantime, I secretly fell for someone who was attached and within days I woke up with a really red right eye and an inability to take sunlight in my eye without my head snapping back in pain and my eyes weeping. The doctor told me it was a mild eye infection.
My weight over the next few months dropped to just under 6.5 stone and whilst I had always been very slight and small, I looked bony and gaunt now as if I had stopped eating properly.
Between August 2003 with the first flare up in my eye and December of that year , I had more than 15 flare ups and 3 doctors at the same surgery told me I was making a big deal out of nothing and they were just mild eye infections. Even though I could barely read a road sign or a Tube map, never mind any text on a television, AND an optrician had demanded I go back to my doctor and tell them I had a serious problem with my eye, I was dismissed by my doctors as being dramatic, with one of them laughing at me scornfully.
I felt so tired all the time and every thing felt like a drain on my body.
On December 22nd 2003, following an argument with the secret guy I was in love with, I had such a bad flare up, my eye seemed to turn back in my head, it was an angry red and it seemed to gush water. The 4th doctor at the surgery agreed that something was seriously wrong and sent me to hospital where I was told that I had uveitis and packed off to the pharmacy for steroids and anti-histammines. I assumed it was just an eye infection and little did I know that my whole life was about to turn upside down.
