About

Hi, my name is Victoria and I have been inspired into writing this blog and creating this community to support others, who like me are living with chronic illness.
I talk about my challenges coping with a chronic health condition and trying to live my life as positively as possible and ensure that I am “sucking the marrow out of life”!
I have had chronic fatigue since I was about 14 years old and since my late teens I have been able to manage it through pacing and a highly organised approach to life and activities. Since I was about 29 I started struggling with chronic pain as well. This led to tests and investigations to see what the cause was.
I was diagnosed with PBC and this mainly causes chronic fatigue and pain for me. It has been getting worse over the last few years and I wanted to write about my experiences and attitude towards life in an attempt to support myself, get things out of my head, and maybe help others going through similar experiences.
I have had to reduce my hours at work, taking an admin role instead of the management role I had last year. I took 2 months off sick about a year ago and have not really managed to get back to pre 2014 levels of anything. I have had to stop dancing, swimming, walking very far, seeing my friends and family as much, going out after 8pm and need help in looking after myself.
Due to this I have started my own business and working self employed from home, on my own terms and to my own timescales has been a huge shift in my life and how I look at the future. I can now see a future whereas a couple of years ago all I could see was my illness. I run a network marketing business retailing health and wellness products which have had a huge benefit on my own health and as well as sharing the products with friends and family, I coach and support others to start their own businesses.
I have recently started doing some public speaking and am establishing myself as a disability advocate for chronic and invisible illnesses so get in touch if any of this is of interest to you:)
I use a walking stick on medium days and have people bring me food on bad days as I can’t move. Good days I can walk a bit without my stick and I love those days!
I have found that having a visual cue for people has helped raise awareness of how much I am struggling, as previously, with an invisible illness, you look fine, but feel dreadful!
I called this blog the amazing adventures of stick girl as I feel as if a whole new world has opened up to me since I now look “sick” to people. I find that most people are more able to understand my condition, and I am getting more support and consideration from friends and strangers because of this. It is an odd phenomenon, and one I am interested in exploring and writing about.
As my health has continued to be unpredictable I have decided to expand my product range and now sell chronic illness slogan T-shirts as well as Jamberry nail wraps and review and recommend films, books and products that I use that either make me smile or help with my health conditions. As I now work from home I also find myself out and about a lot and am reviewing places that I go and commenting on the accessibility and facilities for disabled visitors. 
Get in touch to order any products or comment on my blogs and reviews as I really appreciate the conversations that can arise from some of the issues that I am writing about and love to hear about other people’s opinions and experiences.
Vic xx