I am more than my illness

The story of Livvi

My story starts with an operation to remove my appendix then progresses to pleurisy and pneumonia in my lungs then after that comes something that nobody was expecting, in March 2013 after a long battle trying to convince doctors that I didn’t have chronic fatigue and that my symptoms were not physiological, I was finally diagnosed with a condition that is called hypoadrenalism also known as Addison’s disease which is where my adrenal glands which are located just above my kidneys don’t produce a hormone called cortisol which is vital to the human body to stay alive because of this I am on a lot of medication which again is vital for me to stay alive and I wear a medical alert bracelet on my right wrist that informs people what I have in an emergency and that I also carry an injection for emergency situations such as excessive stress and sudden shock. But this doesn’t mean that I’m abnormal or different, don’t get me wrong I’ve had 3 MRI scans on my pituitary gland and more blood tests that I care to imagine and that I have to see a fair few specialists and have a lot of tests done, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t want the same out life as everyone else, sure I see life a little differently but at the end of the day I still want to hang out with my friends and have a laugh the same as everyone else. I am more than just my illness. I am more than just a patient.