a lovely time was had by all

We left Philadelphia and HUconnexion18 on Tuesday afternoon, landed in the UK on Wednesday morning and I've been trying to make sense of my notes ever since.

Despite an almost hallucinatory level of exhaustion and displacement, we had a fantastic time. We met some amazing and inspiring people and made a number of new friends along the way, both Health Union staff and fellow patient advocate contributors.

I'm still trying to unpack all my thoughts and the lessons we learned. There will likely be a number of disparate blogposts about our three nights in Philadelphia - about the logistics of travelling with a wheelchair, about owning our own stories of chronic illness as opposed to being doomed to endlessly repeat the story of our diagnosis, and about the value of community and the validation that comes the first time somebody just gets it.

On an entirely personal level, the fact that we were able to travel so far on our own is a massively big deal.

If you had told us last summer, when I was up to my ears in relapse, that 9-10 months later we would be travelling over 3,000 miles to attend a conference, we would've laughed in your face. But now we know we can do anything we set our minds to.

my new besties - spot the British teeth!