Welcome to my world.

I often get asked why. Why I had a baby when I couldn't really look after myself. The answer, it seems, is simple. Because she did not give me the choice. She was a complete surprise, and there was no way I was going to get rid of her. She knew I needed her, when I honestly believed the last thing I could become was a mother.

She turned my world around. Yes, I'm still ill. Yes, I still have a wheelchair, crutches, a bath lift and many other forms of mobility equipment. Yes, I do still have to spend the odd day in bed, and yes, my husband still has to have the odd day off work because I'm too ill to look after Niamh. BUT, I'm not always in the wheelchair, I don't have to use the bath lift everyday, my days bed bound are few and far between and my husband CAN work. This, last year, would have been impossible. But when I had Niamh my entire world changed and for the first time in a long time it was for the better.

I look after her, pretty much independantly most days. We have to find our own ways round things, quite often in fact. But we manage, we get there, and most importantly we are both very happy. I'm really very lucky, she seems to know that I need her to be happy and contented, socialable and smiley because I have to rest. She has two, two hour long naps a day, when I make sure I sleep too, and is very happy with other family members when, on the rare occasion, I do need a little extra help.

Before it was a very different story. Bed-bound for 18 months, not even able to get to the toilet alone. I had no idependance, no privacy and no dignity. You have to learn to forget any of these things exsist. I did what I people told me, took the mediciation people gave me and ate and drank only what was brought to me. I lived in one room for over a year, with a black out blind, curtains and a blanket pegged over the top of them. I couldn't stand light, of any kinda. Quite often I couldn't stand noise. I couldn't read, I did not have to cognitative skills. I couldn't eat, I did not have the energy, often someone would have to feed me. I could not hold a conversation, my words would get muddled or come out backwards. I forgot who I was, who my family, the people I loved most in the world were. I couldn't move and was in constent pain. My life crashed and burned around me.

I was that way for years, and then suddenly Niamh came into my life and everything changed. Welcome to my world. This is my story!