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| Health and medical information for consumers, quality assured by the Victorian government (Australia). |
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Personal stories
Page content: Alzheimer's disease | Arthritis | Asthma | Breast cancer | Depression | Gardening as a team | Gardens on wheels | Heart attack | Obsessive compulsive disorder | Spina bifida | Prostate cancer | Suicide attempt | Stroke | Vision loss
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Many health conditions have common symptoms - but how each person experiences a health condition can be different. In these ‘personal stories', people discuss their own experiences of an illness or health condition. How each person experiences a health condition can be different. Each story has a link to related fact sheets, so you can find our more about the particular condition.
Alzheimer’s disease - Jan's story
‘It’s really sad watching your best friend and the person you’ve been closest to just disappear. I suppose that’s the hardest thing - watching him every day just go, so that now he’s nothing like the man I knew. He’s like a stranger.’
Read Jan's personal story.
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Ankylosing spondylitis - Peter's story
'Arthritis is trying to take a lot of things away from you, so you just have to keep a positive attitude and try to take these things back. You should try to look at the things you can do and not dwell on the things you can't.'
Read Peter's personal story. |  |
Asthma - Livina and Geoff's story
‘I think the future will be fine. They understand how to treat their asthma. They both know it is not going to stop them doing anything they want to do.'
Read Livina and Geoff's personal story.
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Breast cancer - Barbara's story
‘If someone has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the one thing I would say is, never, never give in to it. Always be positive. If for some reason you are not happy with the course of treatment laid out for you, seek other opinions until you are happy, and ask as many questions as you can.’
Read Barbara's personal story. |  |
Depression - Helen's story
'I think people really don't understand what depression is. If I had diabetes or heart disease or breast cancer, there would be immediate recognition that I had a legitimate illness. Depression is something that I have trouble feeling is legitimate.'
Read Helen's personal story.
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Heart attacks - Albie's story
‘I got these pains in my chest and down my arm and I felt a bit strange. I lay down and it passed. About an hour later, I felt it again.’
Read Albie's personal story. |  |
Gardening as a team
'Gardening might seem to be a solitary activity for some - but one group of people have shown that it can definitely be an enjoyable team effort. By working together, they turned a patch of barren dirt into a productive edible garden.'
Read how one group of people turned a patch of barren dirt into a productive edible garden.
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Gardens on wheels
'Imagine a vegetable garden that everyone can reach: one you don’t have to bend down to weed, that can follow the sun around in a small backyard and that won’t take up too much space. Impossible you say - think again! ...'
Read how a group of people living in suburban Melbourne came up with a creative approach to gardening in small spaces.
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Obsessive compulsive disorder - Wendy's story
‘I have found I have enough inner strength to cope and beat it, instead of it controlling me. I now know I have a choice and I can choose to either let it tell me what to do, or I can tell it what to do. It has wrecked my life for long enough.'
Read Wendy's personal story. |  |
Prostate cancer - Ray's story
'...for goodness sake, take an interest in your problem. Having prostate cancer is not a death warrant that is going to happen overnight.'
Read Ray's personal story. |  |
Spina bifida - Tamlyn's story
'...I would say to people growing up with this condition … ‘never give up’. Try to see the positive side to it, even though it may be hard sometimes. '
Read Tamlyn's personal story. |  |
Stroke - Helen's story
‘...our lives aren't what they were before ... but we are the same people, people of value, people to be loved and people who can contribute, even though it might be in a very different way to the way it was before we had the stroke.'
Read Helen's personal story. |  |
Suicide attempt - Trevor's story
'Trevor is 40 years old. He lives with his partner, their daughter and his partner’s three children from a previous relationship. He is the survivor of an attempted suicide at the age of 26.'
Read Trevor's story. |  |
Vision loss - Edith's story
‘I think living has within it a series of losses. I don’t think anybody escapes. It is how quickly you can adjust, pick yourself up and start over again.’
Read Edith's personal story.
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