‘I heard the diagnosis and thought my life was over’
Being told you have a serious health condition is devastating. But, as these women discovered, it can also be the catalyst for an exciting new future
‘THE TIREDNESS ARRIVED IN THE BUSIEST YEAR OF MY LIFE’
Author Lizzie Pook is 36 and lives with her husband.
As a travel journalist of seven years, my life used to be a blur of long-haul flights and airport transfers. I’d spend three weeks of each month abroad, washing my clothes in hotel sinks and writing articles at 35,000 feet. I barely had time to take a breath, but I didn’t care.
From Ethiopia to the Himalayas, I was out there seeing the world.
But one day in 2018 – one of the busiest years of my career – the tiredness arrived. It was an all-consuming fatigue. There was pain, too: a heavy throb in my elbows, wrists and knees. My hands and feet were swollen, and it felt like I had shards of broken glass lodged in my ribs. I had brain fog so severe that I struggled to even string a sentence together. I found it hard to work. I began to panic.
Things came to a head a year after the symptoms began, when I was due to leave for Canada on a ten-day assignment. When the train arrived, I couldn’t get on it.
I was so tired and in so much pain that I just sobbed on the platform for 45 minutes.
In 2019, after multiple GP and hospital appointments,
MRI scans and blood tests,
I was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating autoimmune disease. Ankylosing spondylitis is a form of inflammatory arthritis that can take a long time to be correctly diagnosed in women.
Complications can include fused bones, eye problems, inflammatory bowel disease and increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
I felt terrified of what the future might look like. The doctors told me I had to slow down (the disease is exacerbated by stress), and I knew that meant I had to step back from a career I’d spent years trying to build.
I was totally unmoored. Without my job I had no idea who I actually was. At my lowest points – when I couldn’t get out of bed or when I was curled up on my kitchen floor in agony – I was certain that I would never feel successful again.
After several months of
Ban the word ‘lazy’ from your vocabulary. You should never feel guilty for resting.
Talk about it
Many people are surprised to hear about my condition because I look ‘well’. I find that loved ones appreciate being given a heads-up as to how
I’m actually feeling.
Track energy patterns This can help you plan your social calendar or negotiate a flexible schedule at work. struggling to adjust, a long-held dream started to come into focus. I had wanted to write a novel since I was a child, but I was always too busy. I took a flexible job in an office to cover bills and used any free moment I had to write.
It was difficult – the temporary contract meant that when the pandemic hit and I was in the later stages of working on the novel, I was unemployed, unwell and living in my mum’s attic (my husband and I moved back in with her during lockdown). If I failed, I knew I would be left with no financial options. But after a year, I finally had a first draft. Then I secured a literary agent and, ultimately, dream multinational book deals for my debut novel.
When I was diagnosed, I had thought that life would simply always be a little bit worse. But I have since achieved things that I never would have dared to dream of. I work full-time on novel writing now, and I have greater control of my diet, exercise and sleep. I am also financially better off than I ever would have been had I stayed in my old career, although, as an author, you don’t get a salary, so there’s still the worry it could all fizzle out to nothing.
Although I’m still battling with some health issues – my medication severely lowers my immune system – and I’m still getting used to a slower life, I feel grateful for the opportunities that my illness has opened up.
Lizzie’s book Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter is published by Pan Macmillan, price €18.99