Hi guys,
Just wanted to share a few thoughts with you. Firstly, I have HA and have done for all of my life. I've had therapy, pills, counselling. You name it ive tried it. since being s child I've "had" (or not!) tumours, strokes, heart attacks, cancers of every type. Anyway, I have the avoidance branch of HA rather than the type that would see me in the gp surgery every 10 minutes for reassurance. Before this year, I hadn't seen my gp in years. Then, I found out i was pregnant! I'm having to face everything that I fear and it's very very very scary but do you know what, it's doable! Scans, needles, examinations..
Anyway, onto the point I'm trying to make. 5 weeks ago I started bleeding and it was very scary. I had to go to a and e and be poked and prodded. Then came the thing that all HA sufferers fear, they found something abnormal on my cervix. Well I was planning my funeral, wondering if my husband would remarry, guessing how long id got left. It was the worst 5 weeks of my life until I got my biopsy results back but I learnt so many valuable lessons and I wanted to share some of them with you.
1) I realised that I've spent so many years of my life worrying about dying that I've missed out on living. When I think of all the parties I've missed because of my "tumours" or cuddles with my husband because he might have germs, it makes me sad. If my worst fears came true tomorrow and I was staring death in the face, would I be happy with the life I've lived? Absolutely not!
2) I also realised that avoiding medical intervention because of what they might tell me is insane. I'd never had a Pap test because I couldn't bear the thought of them telling me I have cancer. It never occurred to me that if said cancer was found early then they could help me get better! I'll never miss another health check again!
3) finally, in my darkest panic filled hours, in the middle of the night, I realised that HA is something which needs to be addressed. My experiences with mental health services have led me to believe that this condition is very poorly understood and underestimated. We deserve to be helped. We deserve support and we deserve to get better and live happy lives. I vowed in those dark moments to do whatever I can to raise awareness of the cause and make sure that we can get through this. By avoiding medical checks, HA could well have killed me in a roundabout way. That's scary!
Thankfully the biopsy results came back clear and I'm very well but as I said earlier it has been the worst time of my life. If this post can encourage just one person to be brave and face their fears then I'll have done a job and made my first step to helping the cause!
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