A few weeks ago I was invited to be the patient speaker at a KQuIP event for medical staff here in North West England. Honestly, this was a bit of a daunting prospect! I’m not a confident speaker at the best of times, so the thought of standing up and doing a 20-minute presentation about some very personal, sensitive aspects of my life, in front of an audience vastly more knowledgeable than I am was more than a little nerve-wracking!
After spending quite some time scratching my head about what on earth I should say, I concluded the best thing to do was give up on trying to talk about the medical side of everything that’s happened to me, and focus more on specific incidents that I think influenced my perception of myself as somebody with chronic kidney disease, and my ability to deal with the way my life has changed.
Unfortunately, this presentation wasn’t filmed so I can’t share it here, but when I sent a friend of mine the notes I’d written to speak from, she told me; “You absolutely have to put this on your blog!” So I have! This isn’t the direct text of the speech, obviously, but it’s the general content of it.
Links will be updated as the posts are live – the first one should be up tomorrow!
- “IS THIS REALLY ME?”
- “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY…”
- BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
- IT’S OK TO NOT BE OK.
- CHOOSING TO BE EMPOWERED
*I hate this word, but it’s the one I ended up resorting to for lack of a better option.
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