Ok, so plantar warts, cold sores and now diarrhea… happy new year! Saw the doc who says, no reason to worry, I’m doing all the right things and this is due to my primary immune deficiencies and yes, I’m doing really well for someone at age 50 with primary immune deficiencies…. so how many of you have kids with primary immune deficiencies and are you helping them to understand this stuff is part of their ‘normality’ and that they have their own scale of ‘healthy’ and that it may not be the same as that of non immune deficient people?

I am so glad I was never taught to see myself as ill… I was always getting infections and antibiotics etc etc and it did seem to frustrate my mother that I was sick ‘again’, but she didn’t ever seem worried, fretting, anxious about it, so I never picked that up (sure, she was an alcoholic and I believe was a psychopath and personality disordered, and may well have had a fair splash of AS as well, (both of my parents were ‘fruit salads’) but her complete pragmatism about it and her complete lack of worry was still a good thing). I took all this immune deficiency stuff as my version of ‘normal’ and I’ve got to say, how blessed that actually is.

Now, off to the toilet with me, then some glutamine to dry up the squits and some electrolytes because of losing them all in the runs, and some lysine for the herpes simplex, and some wart off for the plantar warts, and probably get back onto the prophylactic antibiotics (was taking a break for the summer), and, and in between I am getting on with me, with living, laughing, loving, with life.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.