I was at my local chicken shop last night, waiting for my order, when I couldn’t help but feel someone was watching me.

As I scanned the room , I noticed a man, about 50 years old, staring at my arm.

“Ah, the fistula”, I thought.

I seem to almost have grown a new arm on top of my left arm, as the fistula seems to have taken on a life of its own (it’s humungous!). I don’t mind my friends and family ribbing me about it, but I take great offence at people I don’t know staring at it.

I tend to float between two different attitudes to my fistula. When my confidence is a bit low, I tend to wear long sleeved tops to hide it, but when I’m feeling good about myself, I seem to care less what people think, and just wear whatever I feel like.

The problem is that when I find myself in a situation like I did last night, it shoots my confidence to bits, and I find myself trying to hide the fistula.

Then I get angry at myself for allowing someone else to dictate how I feel about myself, then I get angry at the other person for making me feel like this.

Arrrgh!