It might surprise you how often people with chronic illness are asked what they do with all the free time they have at home. I think many healthy people have no idea how difficult it is to deal with unrelenting symptoms on a daily basis. I hope to shed some light on this by sharing with you what a day in the life of severe ME is like.

Every Wednesday the ME community comes together on Twitter to raise awareness of this debilitating chronic illness. We share recent media coverage, research news, our personal experiences and more. Making new connections and supporting each other. 

I will post the graphics I shared during the last ME Awareness Hour below. I hope this will help you understand what life is like with ME/CFS. If you have learned something new or find this post might be helpful in any way, please share it or download the images to share on social media and help raise awareness.

Sandwiched between 2 hot water bottles, under layers of clothes and blankets, medicated - multiple times, in the dark with sunglasses on, my phone's screen dimmed and the blue light filter on so that I can bear looking at it for a few minutes at a time.

This was me yesterday after I had a nap on the sofa where I toppled over after lunch, in a bundle of pain and tears as the previous night's insomnia caught up with me and my body was flooded with pain in every muscle and every bone.

I'm so excited to share this third part of my spoonie gift guide, I hope you are enjoying this series as much as I am! I only planned on 3 parts, but if I think of enough cool gift ideas, I might make more. I know it's Christmas season now, but these gifts would be great for birthdays or house warming too.

If you missed the previous gift guides, click here for part 1 and to catch up on part 2, click here. Happy shopping!

I know many people find such joy in shopping for gifts. They start shopping months in advance and they buy the most thoughtful, personalised gifts anybody would love, that's not me. I'm so unorganised! 

If you're anything like me, you've waited till the last minute to do your gift shopping. Whether it's for a birthday, Christmas or a house warming gift, I just cannot get it done unless it's right around the corner and then I might just give up altogether because I'm useless at choosing gifts, it actually stresses me out.

I hope that this series will help any other hopeless gifters out there, I know these are things that I could use and would love to receive, and I know that other chronically ill people will love them too. Happy shopping!

It can be quite tricky deciding what to buy your friends with chronic illness because of all the limitations and intolerances we often have. What would be useful and not harmful in their condition?

There are many lists out there, and they're all slightly different depending on the condition they're tailored for, so I'm making a list of the things I would have loved to receive over the years of being housebound.

I have chronic fatigue and chronic pain as my main symptoms and I struggle with sensory over-stimulation and occasionally anxiety, so anybody with ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia and even those with Migraines and Arthritis might appreciate these items.