How have your friends and family reacted to it (your illness)?
My family have been great. My mum has been ill most of her life with asthma and recurrrent hernias so she knows what it's like to feel like battered crap all the time. My dad - bless him - when I told him what was up, he said 'Will be you be all right though?' Awww. My brother has been great, his girlfriend was fantastic, so accepting right from the off. Everyone has been fantastic. I have an amazing family. If anyone has said anything 'off' about it, it hasn't got back to me.
Most of my friends have been great, and the ones who weren't? They're not my friends any more. When I first got ill I was quite depressed and deleted about 50 ex-workmates from Facebook as constantly having to turn down invitations to go out then having to explain why got tiring. (Side note - why can't some people just take no for an answer?) Some people I used to hang around with and may have called friends once have ended up being acquaintances, but there are so many good people in my life I'm OK with it. But overall I've been really, really lucky.
I wish the same for all people with long term illnesses.
Thanks for reading.
