Who Am I?

Hi all, I hope you're all grand 🩵

Here is a post to introduce who I am properly - *a high level* of my journey so far and just some random facts about myself.

My name is K-Jo and I'm 22 years old. Originally from Ireland, I moved over in my young teens to start a new life in the UK. After secondary school, I went on to do an aerospace engineering qualification and now I work in a whole new field of programming (which is all still very new to me!).

This big change in career was due to me having to adapt to my health and being able to bring an income in. Fortunately, for this change I have been able to get the time to get a diagnosis of my health conditions.

Gynea pain journey:

When I was 7, I started noticing I was getting incredibly bad burning sensations and pain that I couldn’t describe for the life of me. I went on to see many GP's who passed it off as "women problems" or "I'll get over it". I then tried to ignore the problem till I was 16 where it was starting to become unbearable and tried to find help again from a GP. I was once again ignored and told it would pass by 3 other GP's. In March 2020, I ended up becoming incredibly ill with Glandular fever which started my proper health discovery into finding out what was wrong with me. Since then I have been to various doctors with dead ends until March 2023 where I am now fully diagnosed with vaginismus and going through the motions on trying to stop the pain which I will go into detail in other blog posts 😊

PoTS Journey:

Throughout my whole life I have always been exhausted, light headed and always on edge but I always put it off as just nothing and just teen development. However in March 2020, when I got Glandular fever, I completely crashed. I couldn’t walk properly, never left the house for 1 and a half years, barely showered or even got out of bed. My body felt like it was just dead. It was so difficult to move anything and my perception was completely off. I went to various GP's who all said it was nothing and my blood test results would come back with no problems. I was so determined to figure out what was wrong as it was reaching 2 years and I was still terrified to leave the house, even with someone helping me. I then went to various private doctors for help which were all dead ends (1 of them even told me I was making it up! The cheek right!). I then discovered I had an eyesight problem called Visual Snow Sydrome (I will go into detail in another blog post) which finally started my journery into finding out I had PoTS. I came across a fantastic doctor who looked at me and instantly knew what was wrong. Only in March 2023 I am finally getting the help now. I will keep writing blog posts about the journey and keep people updated.

Overall it has not been an easy journey but I'm determined to find the right support for me. I'm tired of being told over and over again that none of these illnesses exist and I am very grateful for the doctors I have finally come across who will listen. Those moments I found the doctors who understood me were such a remarkable relief, one I cannot describe.

Also just to pop on the end, some random facts that people may like to know:

• I adore books, super obssessed with reading romantasy.

• I love animals (Rode horses for 12 years and have a beautiful German Shepherd)

• I love to dance and love to colour (not draw or paint though, I'm useless at those 🤣)

• I also love to cook and love finding new healthy recipes

Anyhow, there's the little introduction into who I am and a quick overview of my journey so far. I plan to make multiple blog posts about both health journeys and keep everyone updated with my progress and any tips I found useful on the way alongside all the mistakes I have made.

Thank you for the read and please feel free to leave any comments below or get in contact with me if you have any questions.

Till the next post...