Jusqu'ici tout va bein 🤍

I started writing blogs at the height of the lockdown, whilst we were told to stay inside due to the horrible virus that was ruining lives and making people unwell. It began as a task to keep occupied as I was out of work at the time and also recovering from surgery. I found that I would write when I was unable to sleep and would finish writing when the summer sun rose in the early hours of the morning. My reason for writing began to change as I started to get feedback from friends and family. I noticed that people wanted to hear my story and they were invested in how I continued my journey. When the lockdown period ended so did my writing, I began to meet up with friends and family and no longer felt the personal need to express how I felt at that present time. I would pick up the blogs again when I was going through a difficult time after a break up of a relationship. With this, I slowly began to realise how much writing blogs was helping me get through difficult periods in my life....

Christmas was over and so was the time I spent feeling sorry for myself, the old Cliche of “New Year New Me”. With the New Year coming up I was determined to make all the lifestyle changes that needed to be done to fight the struggles I had been going through over the Christmas period. Now began my mission to get back into a routine, get healthy, and think about personal and career goals for the new year. I wanted 2023 to be a new beginning. I want to take some time to concentrate on my physical and mental health and spend time finding out more about myself, being more selfish and taking all the opportunities to develop more skills. I needed to get over the current issues I was going through. Colitis is my biggest problem and it has been draining me physically and mentally, as a result, most days I return from work I am exhausted and irritable. Being someone who is mostly chilled out and nonchalant, being frustrated most of the time is difficult, I notice the changes in my mood but som...

Navigating life with a long-term illness comes with its challenges, my biggest challenge is feeling confident in myself to have any plans for my future.  When I woke up on Sunday 11th December 2022 I had no idea that I would have been placed in the hospital after collapsing at home during the day. But this put things into perspective for me as I felt that I started to become complacent with how I lived, I wasn’t really looking after myself, my diet was bad, I didn’t exercise at all and I was even smoking cigarettes and vapes.  From when I started smoking I knew it wasn’t good for me, I had no reason for doing it, I myself didn’t like any aspect of the smell, taste but when I got into stressful periods I would fall back into smoking as I felt it relieved the stress somehow, I know ultimately this is nonsense.  As I sat and told the consultants about my smoking habits they explained how it could’ve been a contributing factor to my having blood clots. However, it was explain...

Sunday 11th December laying on a bed thinking it was my last moments on this earth. I wished for another chance knowing that I hadn’t achieved what I wanted to, imagining all the places I had yet to visit on the planet, the family and friends I may have been leaving behind. Feeling helpless knowing that I would no longer be around to support and help them in their times of need. All of these thoughts that I had, I found myself slowly waking back up, my breath began to return, and my eyes slowly opened, I then heard the front door opening and my Aunts voice from downstairs, as I tried to reply but still felt out of breath. She rushed upstairs where she found me laying on my bed, I was able to reposition myself, and explained how I had collapsed throughout the morning.   My Aunt then checked my Blood pressure which at that time was low, we made the decision to call 111 to get some advice, this was a long waiting process and we were on the phone waiting to get hold of someone for arou...

Having Started 2022 strong setting goals for the year and making lifestyle changes, it was clear to me that I wanted to make 2022 the best year I could make it! The previous years had been consumed by Covid lockdowns and my personal health battles, having just recovered from Liver Transplantation.  The year started with a new opportunity coming out of meeting a family who was running a Caribbean-themed restaurant, they wanted to bring a musical aspect to the dining experience for their customers so they had asked me to DJ there on some occasions. This would be one of my first experiences DJing regularly and being paid for entertaining people. The opportunity to Dj in this restaurant gave me regular practice and enabled me to improve my confidence and skills in DJing. I would go on to take various opportunities DJing in clubs/bars in and around Hoxton and Shoreditch in London, and even DJing in a club in Manchester. In my previous blog, I spoke about having had a major setback as it...

14th June 2022. My second diagnosis of autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis. Since 2012 I have been battling this liver disease. The bane of my life something I have let hold me back from living life itself, it led to me having a liver transplant and 2 years after having my surgery it is back like it had never left.  My 25th year on this planet with a second lease of life having received a healthy liver gave me hope that I would be able to take life on and catch up on years I had missed out on due to my struggles with health problems.  I started to notice a few symptoms around March 2022 when I recognised symptoms from before I had the liver transplant, the yellowing of my skin and eyes (Jaundice) the itching of all parts of my body, and genuine fatigue and tiredness that left me not wanting to do anything. Getting to work was becoming a struggle, and I felt isolated from friends as I felt I didn’t have anyone to talk to who would understand what I was going through.  I cont...