2

So far, so good, right? But let’s not speak too soon, because two massive things were about to happen to me. They were completely separate, but they joined together and ended up causing a lot of agg in my childhood. And I would say they have really affected my whole life so far, as you’ll get to see. It was a horrible time for me, and, I’m not going to lie, I really don’t like talking about it, but I want to be completely truthful about everything in my life. Also, if me telling you what happened helps someone, well then something good will have come out of it. Anyway, here it goes…

When I was in Year Three at Churchfields, I began to feel unwell. I was back and forth to the doctor, and they said maybe I was allergic to something.

I kept having more and more tests to see what that might be. I started being sick and couldn’t keep anything down. My parents were beside themselves, and all these doctors just kept scratching their heads. Eventually, my parents took me to see a homeopath, and she confirmed I was actually allergic to loads of stuff. Just to add to it, it was all my favourite foods, so it turned out I’d been eating loads of the wrong stuff my entire life.

They worked out I was allergic to wheat and gluten, and that was really, really sad for me because I loved my food. At that point my body had just said, ‘Enough’ and started to shut down. I wasn’t actually diagnosed as having coeliac disease until about three years later – because all that time they weren’t sure. When I was finally diagnosed with coeliac, it came after a whole extra load of hospital appointments and tests.

Coeliac disease is a really serious condition because it means your small intestine gets inflamed, so you can’t absorb nutrients. It causes all sorts of problems like belly ache, diarrhoea and bloating. It can also make you feel really tired, because you’re not getting enough energy from food, and keeps you really skinny. If you’re not careful and don’t follow a strict diet, you can end up with osteoporosis or even bowel cancer. Like I said, it’s really serious, and, once you have it, it stays with you your whole life.

Once they knew what was wrong with me, I had to completely change my diet, and toughen up my immune system. I had a lot of time off school. That might sound like fun for a bit when you’re eight, being at home and watching TV, but after a while it was terrible.

Because I was so ill, I didn’t actually notice how bad it was at first. I was too busy being all frail, pale and really, really skinny. It was only as I started to get better that I began to notice how much I was missing out on. I can remember now, I was soooo bored! Milly was still a baby, Harry was at school by then, so guess who I had for company? Bratz dolls! Dunno if you ever played with Bratz dolls, but my favourite was Yasmin. She was tanned with brown hair, and I wanted to look like her. By then, I was too old to be playing with dolls, but because I was at home a lot, there wasn’t much else to do – it was just me and my Bratz.

Yep, I remember it now, total nightmare, but the time did finally pass – I got a bit better and I was allowed to go back to school. It was great being back with my mates and all the other kids, but I still had to be extra careful, which wasn’t much fun. I was always that ‘sick kid’ at school. There’s always one, isn’t there? Well, at my school, I was that ‘one’. If a bug was going round, I definitely caught it! So then I had to have time off again.

Nothing lasts forever, though, and I did get a bit stronger during those last couple of years at Churchfields. I was on a really strict diet, and everyone actually got a bit jealous because I was allowed to eat special food that my mum made me. She even used to bring me in takeaways.

So I can definitely say that my bad health didn’t knock my confidence at all when it was my only problem. Things only started going really bad for me when I had to leave Churchfields and go to secondary school. That meant going to Woodbridge, stepping into the complete unknown, and, trust me, I was absolutely shitting myself.