The photo above left was taken in 2017, three years into a long chronic illness. Above right is me in the summer of 2023, on the last day of a nine day walking pilgrimage in Ireland. If you had told 2017 me that I would one day walk over 100 consecutive miles through the land of my ancestors I never would have believed you. I got sick in the spring of 2013 and didn’t receive a proper diagnosis until 2020. I spent six years half-bedridden with three young children at home, not knowing why I couldn’t function.

How did I land in bed, and how did I emerge after almost a decade?