Sunday 4 November 2012

Give me a Break? Soap Box



Give me a break? Soap Box

Up until recently I was working, self employed, running my own cleaning business, but my Iron overload has turned me into a pain driven miserable wreck. I still have the work but have to get staff to do most of it as it is almost impossible to bend, or swing vacuum cleaners around or carry them up and down flights of stairs. Ironically, I now have a rather unenviable position in as much as because I have some income from my work and manage to scrape together (and I mean scrape) just enough, though in real terms it is less than enough, to make ends meet, then I do not have the privilege of getting any help, WHATSOEVER.

I have worked for 90% of my adult life, just struggling through and demonising those who think it is their god given right to be out of work and still claim an government entitlement. “If I can do it so can they” I have found myself saying time and time again. And now, at the very time I need some support I am looked upon as an undeserving fraud, just because I have an illness that doesn’t tick all the boxes.

Please believe me when I say that claiming any benefit or begging for hand outs is the absolute last thing I would ever want to do. I am a proud woman who has always worked hard, been a loyal and good friend, loved and always done the best I could in bringing up my three wonderful children. I do not want to feel like this. I do not want to be in so much pain, I do not want to be unable to do anything for myself, and I do not want a genetic disorder to claim my life but what I do want is someone to stand up and prove, or at least agree that this is not a figment of my imagination and that it really can cause so much dreadful pain and fatigue. 

Just because Hemochromatosis/Iron-Overload isn’t a common recognisable title, and please god I never get something like Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, or Ankylosing Spondylitis, Parkinson’s or M.S. or any other acknowledged titled illness, doesn't mean that Hemochromatosis doesn't exist. It can make you very poorly and be just as disabling and debilitating as many other illnesses. Just because you cannot see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I am so fed up with people, albeit medical or others who think because they cannot see my disability, I don’t have one.

Please note that I am in no way trivializing the illnesses mentioned above. I am just using the idea that titles are not the basis of a prognosis, and also to make my point. I certainly do not wish to offend anyone

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