The Chronic-Ills Blog

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve stumbled upon my little corner of the internet because you’re searching for something maybe answers, understanding, hope, or just a place where someone gets it. If that’s the case, welcome. You’re not alone here.

My name is Sarah, and I’ve been sick since I was 11 years old. At first, the doctors told me I had a condition called Henoch-Schönlein Purpura. But as the years went on and my health declined, the answers became fewer, and the questions multiplied. Instead of solutions, I was passed from doctor to doctor, each one more baffled than the last.

If you are reading this after my books you will be aware that at the age of 12, my world shattered in more ways than one. I experienced something no child ever should, and was Sexually abused, a trauma that left me with PTSD.

As my mental health crumbled, so did my body. Doctors dismissed my worsening symptoms as psychosomatic, telling me my illness was “all in my head.” I even started to believe them. I tried therapy. I tried antidepressants. But none of it stopped my body from deteriorating.

It took 12 and a half years, a lifetime of pain, doubt, and relentless searching before I finally got my official diagnosis: Undifferentiated Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, often called Lupus Overlap Disease.

As the years went on my medical rap sheet had grown over the years, secondary to my existing condition- Raynaud’s Phenomenon, Functional Neurological Disorder and Antiphospholipid Syndrome. Along with suffering with gynecological issues, my body was my worst enemy

I started collecting conditions like Pokémon, except there was no prize for “catching them all.”

With my diagnosis finally came treatment and an array of experimental medications, none of which would ever cure me.

The doctors were clear: this was a slow death sentence.

The best pharmaceuticals could do was slow the inevitable. I had to come to terms with the fact that my body would never heal. That the life I had imagined for myself was no longer possible.

But here’s the thing: I’m still here.

Living with chronic illness is a brutal, relentless fight. It steals, it isolates, it tests every part of you. But it also teaches. It forces you to find strength in places you never knew existed. It reshapes you, sometimes in painful ways, but sometimes in ways that make you realise just how powerful the human spirit can be.

The Chronic-Ills Blog is my raw, unfiltered journey through the pain, the hope, the laughter, and the losses. It’s about what it means to keep going when your body is your biggest battleground.

It’s a continuation of my story from my books, Sincerely Survivor and Wit Happens, as well as a space where I’ll share the unspoken realities of life with chronic illness.

So if you’ve ever felt unheard, unseen, or like you’re fighting a battle no one else understands, please stick around. Let’s walk along this bumpy road together.

See you next week!

Sarah