It’s PKU Awareness Month: here’s how I’ve learnt to embrace my condition

Today is the first day of May which is exciting because summer is approaching us quickly, but with more relevance today also marks the beginning of PKU Awareness Month.

Raising awareness for PKU has become such an important goal of mine over the past couple of years and I hope that my blog has helped towards achieving this.

To any new readers, here’s a little bit about past me and how I have learnt to embrace my PKU over the years…

Before the days of my blog I was actually very reserved about my condition pretty much all of the time. I would only openly talk about it if a situation truly required me to. My close friends have always known of my condition and so that was just enough for me. Although I think I have significantly grown in confidence over the past few years, I am generally a quiet person who is happy to keep myself to myself. In a large group of people I would much rather sit and listen to others instead of being the centre of attention. However, I feel that having PKU sometimes makes this difficult. When I got into my second year of university though, I decided it was time for change and I made the bold decision to set up this blog.

So why did I decide to suddenly change my ways?

As I mentioned previously, I have grown in confidence over the years (I don’t feel like the same person I was back in my school days) and this includes gaining confidence with my PKU – I think moving away to university helped with this massively and also starting work last year has contributed but there has just been a naturally growth in my confidence as I’ve gotten a bit older. Anyhow, I no longer really care what others think of me and my condition. It sounds cheesy but I have learnt to embrace it as being a part of me – something that should no longer be hidden. I honestly wish that everyone with PKU and any rare disease for that fact could feel this way because it is the best feeling. I remember how I felt when my first ever blog post went live - indeed I was terrified but I also felt hugely relieved, like the biggest weight had just been lifted from me. It was something I should have done long before then.

I want to end this with a message to you then, embrace your condition, have confidence, share your story with someone new and help to raise awareness.

Thank you for reading.

From my recent trip to London