I was a very healthy baby, but by the time I reached two years old and had my baby vaccinations, something changed. There’s a lot of speculation over what cause this changed, especially since the internet didn’t much exist at the time, but safe to say I wasn’t well from this point. In hours and days after my vaccinations I became distressed, ran a fever, exhibited flu-like symptoms and was noticeably more fatigued.

These symptoms never fully went away, with me seeming to have a much weaker immune system after this point and constantly suffering with chest and urinary tract infections. I could not seem to shift the infections, leading to being on several rounds of antibiotics each time. I would get multiple of each per year and spent more time out of nursery than in it. Eventually, when I was five years old I was diagnosed officially with M.E (also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – these days, very similar to long Covid). According to the Tymes Trust at the time, I was the youngest person ever diagnosed with this condition. 

Around the age of five, I started to develop other issues to accompany the ones I already had, including poor balance, pains in my joints, burning feelings in my skin and issues with my digestive system. 

These only worsened over the next few years, as the doctors frantically hunted to try to put a name to what was happening. As a young child, I spent a lot of time in the hospital having tests for one thing or another and hitting many, many dead ends.  Nothing seemed to be obviously wrong, and yet it was very clear that I wasn’t a healthy child and I couldn’t keep up with my peers.