Isobel Williams: They Didn’t Believe Me

Transcript

I remember my GP she kind of didn’t believe I was ill and she would tell me things like, you know, ‘Oh there’s lots of other children that are managing to get to school that have got cancer and things like that you know. If you just tried’ and she would say things to Mum, you know, ‘She must get back at school, she must get back at school like next week, two more weeks and then she has to be back by then,' you know, and it was all very much like, pushing me back into school, even though I wasn’t very well. It was very frustrating because, like my teachers as well, they didn’t really believe that, you know there was anything really wrong with me, but it was very out of character, like anyone that really knew me, that I was really sporty, like at that age I kind of, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a woman’s footballer, like I was really, really sporty, really active, go out on my bike all the time, I would never be one of those kids that sits in and plays games or, you know, watches TV, I never really liked anything like that, so for me to kind of have my life completely changed to be someone that couldn’t get out of bed and couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I found it incredibly frustrating that people were turning round and saying ‘Oh you’re just making it up,’ or like ‘Oh she’s just lazy.’ And I remember lots of people saying to my mum, you know, I remember we had this cleaner and she said to mum once ‘You know children can pull the wool over your eyes,’ and I was like ‘Oooh’ you know, so it was very, very frustrating actually.

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