Kellie Blondel (31), who has a non-cancerous 8 mm microadenoma in her pituitary gland, suffered from a range of health problems and symptoms throughout her 20s before finally being diagnosed in 2014.
Miss Blondel, who today has told her story in an interview on page 8, says she felt that her symptoms were ‘brushed off’ by doctors for years and it was not until an incident at a surgery, during which her face went numb and her skin changed colour, that she felt she was taken seriously.
She now wants to raise awareness of her symptoms and encourage people to be more understanding of those living with medical conditions that affect their lives, even if they aren’t always obvious at first glance.
‘I’d felt terrible for a long time and it took ages for it to be taken seriously,’ said Miss Blondel, who has a 2½-year-old daughter, Athena. ‘One minute I was told I was having migraines, the next I had chronic fatigue. It felt like for ages it was brushed off. It was horrendous.
‘My sick record [at work] was absolutely ridiculous. I think lots of people just thought I was lazy.’
She added: ‘If there is something wrong with you, be an advocate for your own health and keep going and keep going. You know your own body.’
Miss Blondel’s symptoms included blurred vision and severe visual changes, extreme fatigue and headaches. She also easily contracted colds and infections and was generally unwell much of the time.
She also suffers from a number of other medical conditions including fibromyalgia, the painful skin condition lichen sclerosus and endometriosis.
Miss Blondel, who has recently started her own business in an attempt to get out of the income support system, now takes a cocktail of drugs to help control the symptoms of the many health problems caused by her tumour, which is in the gland at the base of her brain that regulates hormones.
‘The tumour has caused lots of little illnesses that lots of different people have, but they don’t necessarily have all of them put together,’ she said.
‘Finding the tumour hasn’t changed a single thing with how I feel on a daily basis – it is just that people allow me to be ill now, which is such a shame because there must be so many people with illnesses undiagnosed getting the same treatment, with people thinking they are just lazy and can’t be bothered – and it is just not fair. People are less tolerant if you can’t see the illness.’
