First blog post after a long time!

Sorry I haven't been posting here for a while. I'm hoping to get things back on track soon.

Those of you who also follow my artist page on Facebook might have seen from some recent posts that I haven't been well on and off since September 2020. Actually, it has been going on for much longer than that - the photo above shows an episcleritic flare up in my right eye back in April 2016, and I had the first one in October 2015, when I was on a North Country quilting course with Lilian Hedley. I didn't go into the details at the time, but I was unable to do much on the course because my vision was quite badly affected. Each time, these eye flares had to be treated with steroids, and responded to that. I had another really big flare that lasted almost a month over Christmas and New Year.

On Good Friday a few weeks ago, I started feeling a bit odd and ended up with what my GP and NHS 111 assumed was an ear infection - but it wasn't. I ended up in hospital on 21st April, almost 3 weeks later, where I was diagnosed with Relapsing Polychondritis, a progressive auto immune diesease which is quite rare.

I have updated my website 'about me' page with some information about this, so please use the links there to read more about it (if you like) - https://www.susanbriscoe.com/about

At the moment, I am being treated with steroids, which is helping. It is a progressive disease and I will be able to less in future and take a bit more care of myself! So more work from home and less travel to teach or do shows looks likely.