Walking for POTS

Do you want to join me in making a difference? I'm raising money in aid of THE AUSTRALIAN POTS FOUNDATION LTD and every donation will help. Thank you in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to me.

Hi my name is olivia I am 10 years old turning 11. Most people know that i like everything pink, fashion and sea turtles.What you don’t know is that over the last 9 months I’ve been pretty unwell and after lots of DRs appointments and hospital visits and lots of tests, blood tests are my least favourite thing to do, we found out I have something called POTS, which stand for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. This is a condition of the autonomic nerve system, this system controls many of the functions of the body. In POTS my body doesn’t work as well as it should. Sometimes when I stand up or stand for too long my body goes crazy and makes me have lots of symptoms that make me feel unwell.POTS is different for everyone and there are good days which means I wouldn’t have lots of problems, then the bad days where I have lots of problems which means I end up staying home because I cant handle school. Some symptoms are fainting, dizziness, chest pain and lots more. POTS makes me feel unwell, tired and sad. I have to take extra water, salt and pain relief. I feel sad sometimes when I miss school a lot because I miss out on lots of fun stuff. On a hot days it gets worse and also when I’m exercising and tired.

I have decided to walk 5k to raise money for the POTS foundation, I will be doing this in around 6 weeks when it’s a bit cooler and I’m hoping a few of my friends join me. I hope to help raise awareness of POTS so more people understand it, then when I get asked what’s wrong and I say POTS I don’t always need to explain as don’t forget I’m just 10 and I can tell you how I feel but its hard to explain why, the money I raise will help fund more research into POTS and hopefully one day provide a better treatment and management plan for us all. I have also made a Boucher to give to my friends and teachers to help them understand how I might be feeling.

Im lucky as we found out pretty quickly what was wrong for many it’s years of suffering, I have been cared for by many amazing Doctors and nurses but there are still a few that I felt didn’t listen or said things to my mum thinking I wouldn’t understand, I might have little ears but they work really well and I mostly understand the conversations and the ones I’m not sure of mum definitely tells me what it all meant.

so as much as I can’t wait to raise some money awareness is also on my mind, sometimes it takes a little voice to make the loudest noice thanks for reading