M.E Awareness day 2015 & Team Princess fundraiser

M.E Awareness week is now over but I want to talk about what we achieved as sufferers as it's quite a big deal. May 12th was our Team Princess fundraiser, on international M.E Awareness day.

I am so proud of everyone who raised awareness by talking about it, posting pictures, sharing stories, raising money or generally just being awesome as there are a lot of pretty amazing people in the M.E community.

So our fundraiser, as you will know if you read my blog, was where a group of us sufferers became Princesses for the day. Due to us being poorly & unable to do any typical physical fundraising stuff, last year our lovely Queen Sian came up with the idea so this was the second year of it happening. A lot of time effort & (non existent!) energy went into the planning & Sian really deserves a medal for all her hard work. We all massively appreciate everything she did to make the event a success.

My day didn't start so well as my mini Princess wasn't well so had to stay off school. She had a poorly tummy & was flaked out on the sofa. My original plan was therefore not going to happen! I had luckily had some pictures done the previous day so I could try to pace a bit on the day. Everyone had been wondering what my outfit was for ages so I could finally reveal that (surprise surprise with a Frozen loving child) I was to become Princess Anna!

My sister does childrens' parties & has the costume already so she kindly lent it to me! I have to admit I did really like it (probably because it's blue!) & I've had so many compliments about how much the hair suited me which is quite funny. I accessorised with some Crown & Glory. Naturally.

When you are poorly & have a very low supply of energy it's really difficult to be online for any length of time at once. However the aim of the game was to raise awareness as well as money, so that's what I did. Flooded social media with pictures & the link to my JustGiving. Which totally wore me out but it needed doing.

I had already received lots of donations before the day itself but I got lots of others on the day too. I am extremely grateful to everyone who supported me. I am a little disappointed in some people but won't dwell on that & instead shall say that the people who did donate really have made a difference. They showed they care. They read my story. They understood why it was so important to me. That I want to try to remain positive that some day a cure will be found for M.E.  That I would do anything to give my daughter a mummy who isn't poorly. And every person who did donate made me feel like I matter. I will keep fighting because the government doesn't put much into M.E research so if sufferers don't raise funds too then who else will do it for us?

Anyway Anna was not the only Frozen costume that I had been hiding. Yep that's right... Elsa made an appearance too!

I can safely say that blonde does not suit me & that I didn't get complimented on it!!

My mini Princess had perked up a bit by the afternoon so I asked her if she wanted to dress up for 5 minutes. Luckily she said yes. And this was the result... mini Anna!

The next pictures I absolutely love but they make me feel really emotional at the same time.

I love my girl so much & I will always cling on to hope that I might get better in the future. Who knows what will happen but what I do know is that the money we have raised will make a start. I managed to raise £746.25 including gift aid for ME Research UK and as a team we have to date managed to raise a whopping £5858.28 for every single registered M.E charity in the UK & 1 in Australia. Not bad for a bunch of poorly people hey!

If anyone that hasn't already wants to donate, my JustGiving is still open but not for long. You can donate by texting AMLC99 £2, £3, £5, £10 etc to 70070 or you can visit my page at www.justgiving.com/princessali

We also held an auction in the evening & the items I had made managed to raise a bit of money for Smile for ME so that was an extra bit of happiness to end the day.

It has taken a while for me to get over the event, it totally wiped me out, but I am proud & so glad I did it.

Lots of love & huge hugs to all my supporters (!) & everyone who is affected by M.E in some way. And to my fellow Princesses (& Queen) you are all amazing :-)


Princess Ali
xx