IMPORTANT UPDATE: Hi everyone, I wouldn’t normally make a se..

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Hi everyone, I wouldn’t normally make a serious post like this here but I think it’s important for you to be aware of the issues I’ve been dealing with. I wrote this post to share on all my various pages. Thank you I’m advance for reading and for all your support and understanding. New clips and pics to follow later 🩵

I hate making posts like this but I want to talk to you seriously about my health. I know this isn’t a fun post, it’s not what you’re here for (it’s not what I’m here for either!) But behind every content creator is a real person with a real life, real health issues and real problems, and sometimes we need to keep you in the loop, both so you know why things have changed and because we need support now and then, whether we want to admit it or not.

I’ve been basically walking around with full-blown meningitis for the last 4 months. It’s been impossible to take time off and I’ve been working 12 hour days much of the time during this period. I’ve been doing all I can aside from resting to try to recover but every time I felt like I was making progress I relapsed again, especially every time I filmed content after which I crashed hard. I’ve been in chronic pain for 30 years but since March I’ve been in the worst, constant pain of my life. There have been nights where i wasn’t sure I’d wake up in the morning. I’ve spent decades dodging death; in the past I’ve had collapsed lungs, my heart’s stopped, my organs began failing, but I’ve never been as terrified as I have been recently.

My medical issues are interconnected and complex. The crohns stuff improves when I’m able to eat well but the nausea from the pain has made eating harder and harder over the last few months. When your work revolves around you eating lots and getting fat that’s definitely not ideal but just feeling all the healing and progress I made at the start of the year reverse to the point where I’m spending hours and hours again in agony on the bathroom, getting weaker and weaker, crawling back through the caravan because I’m too exhausted to stand - it’s been heartbreaking. I thought I was finally getting somewhere.

When I’m in pain I can’t eat, when I don’t eat the crohns gets worse, when the crohns gets worse I can’t process my food or meds properly and then my health gets worse - it’s a vicious cycle and there’s only one thing that has proven to stop that, which is a high dose of steroids. While I was initially prescribed them for crohns they have proven to control several of my other conditions, and they suppress the meningitis.

I’ve been suffering bouts of recurrent meningitis since late 2015. My diagnosis has now been revised to chronic meningitis. Reluctantly I’ve agreed to an extended high dose of steroids, without intending to taper them this time. This is a last ditch attempt to avoid a lengthy hospital stay. I HATE hospitals, I’ve had some really bad experiences and I’ll do anything to avoid them. I always end up in a worse state than when I went in.

There are side effects to the steroids; some good and some bad. The worst one is the swelling around my face and neck. I understand some of you like that and see it as just weight gain, but at the risk of sounding weak and vulnerable I ask you to please not bring it up, even if you intend it as a compliment. That’s not what my face looks like through weight gain alone, it can be very painful and tender, I feel ugly and hate showing my face on camera when it’s like that. There’s also nasty effects on my skin and hair and bad insomnia, plus all kinds of other stuff that’s less troublesome but I’d rather not have to deal with again. However, that’s better than living like this for another day. There are also risks with being on steroids long term but each time I’ve tapered down or off I become seriously I’ll do at this point it’s worth the trade off.

But there are positive side effects too. Some of which hopefully you will enjoy as much as I will. Aside from generally getting better they DO suppress a bunch of other conditions so I generally have a lot more energy and strength and can generally do more and work more. But the biggest thing is the appetite boost, especially as my body heals. Usually after being on the high dose for about 2 weeks I get a massive spike in hunger and each time that’s happened I’ve ended up making HUGE gains! And when I’m eating so much more I’m able to make a bunch of extra content. After literally having to force myself to eat for the last few months I can’t wait to actually ENJOY FOOD AGAIN 🤗🤗🤗

I don’t want this post to sound like a pity party but I think it’s important to explain why I’ve been quieter than usual. I try to stay upbeat and bright in my posts but it’s been hard to keep doing that lately. It’s taken a really long time to write this so I’m going to get this finished and posted. I have lots of videos, pics and audio to post over the next week or so, please bear with me.

I couldn’t be more humbled by how kind and supportive you’ve been over not just the last few months but the 11 years I’ve been making belly content. Thank you for being amazing, and I’ll always try hard to make the best videos I can in return. This community means SO much to me 💙