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Who am I?

Hey there, welcome to my blog. My name is Sian, I’m 28, I live in Scotland and I have a chronic illness called M.E.  What is M.E.? M.E stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).  How long have I had ME?  I developed M.E 2 years ago at the start of September. I was about to start college to study beauty therapy and the day before I had a headache. Ok, no big deal, everyone has headaches. By the evening it had developed into a migraine (you know, when you can’t stand the light, or sounds, and you feel like you’re going to throw up). I didn’t think too much of it and hoped it would be gone by the morning. Well, it didn’t go. In fact, I had that same migraine constantly for 6 months straight.  What did you do?  I got on with it. I started college the next day, and I attended every day I was supposed to until I couldn’t handle it anymore, which was Christmas 2016.  What ...
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Who am I?

Hey there, welcome to my blog. My name is Sian, I’m 28, I live in Scotland and I have a chronic illness called M.E. 


What is M.E.?

M.E stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). 

How long have I had ME? 

I developed M.E 2 years ago at the start of September. I was about to start college to study beauty therapy and the day before I had a headache. Ok, no big deal, everyone has headaches. By the evening it had developed into a migraine (you know, when you can’t stand the light, or sounds, and you feel like you’re going to throw up). I didn’t think too much of it and hoped it would be gone by the morning. Well, it didn’t go. In fact, I had that same migraine constantly for 6 months straight. 

What did you do? 

I got on with it. I started college the next day, and I attended every day I was supposed to until I couldn’t handle it anymore, which was Christmas 2016. 

What happened next? 

I was in a lot of pain everyday, if you’ve ever had a migraine you will know what I’m on about. I had to wear sunglasses most of the time because the tube lighting was too harsh for my oversensitive eyes. It hurt so much. I was constantly popping co-codamol (the strong ones only available on prescription) and I sometimes even wore earplugs to block some of the noise out. I was fatigued, I was sleeping ok but it wasn’t refreshing sleep, I felt like I’d be dreaming all night and running at the same time. I was always tired (I’ve always needed a lot of sleep, it’s just the way I’m wired, but this was beyond my normal tiredness levels). 

I was managing to study and keep on top of any homework that needed doing. I was only in college 3 days a week, which is classed as full time, but you had to study the other days. I was doing well at performing treatments, I particularly enjoyed performing facials and massages. I liked connecting with people on a very personal, skin to skin level. I liked to feel I was making a difference with my hands - plus my hands were always warm, thanks to giving up smoking the year before. I had the warmest hands out of my class (a facial just isn’t as relaxing with ice blocks rubbing your face, ha ha). 

I loved what I was doing, I loved the other girls and I loved doing something with my time, and brain. I picked up the human anatomy very quickly (I have worked as a medical secretary in the past and medical stuff just sinks in easily for me). 

As it got towards Christmas I had to have one or two days off as I was beyond tired and in so much pain with my head and eyes. I had to make the very sad decision to leave college by January 2017 as I was making myself feel very unwell and I started to realise that I was sick, not a general I-have-a-cold sick, but really sick. And so I withdrew myself from the course with the promise to stay in touch with my classmates, but sadly I have never seen or spoken to any of them again. 

I will leave it there, I feel like this is a good introduction to me, to my first ever blog and it’s time for me to try and sleep (it was 4am this morning when I finally managed to get to sleep, let’s hope it’s not a repeat of that!). 

Thank you for reading. 
Speak soon!
That ME Girl


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Location: Kirkcaldy, UK

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