@taylorswift @taylornation
hi taylor, i’m hayley! i just recently turned 19 on june 19th. i’m from australia. i have loved and admired you since i was 9 years old, so that’s 10 whole years of total swiftie dedication. whilst i look like the average teenage girl, i actually suffer with a rare and incurable condition. it’s called behçet’s disease, it’s an inflammatory disorder that causes me quite a lot of pain. it gives me mouthfuls of mouth ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, fatigue, cognitive fogginess, cellulitis and more. i have flare-ups of my condition which worsen the symptoms. i’m thankful that so far i have yet to be diagnosed with the neurological form of this disease as that can have scary symptoms such as brain aneurysms. i always struggled with my health when i was younger but kids are definitely resilient so i didn’t let it bring me down but as i got older and i noticed i wasn’t like my peers, i let it get to me. because it’s an invisible condition, it was difficult to explain to others why i was absent from school for a long period of time, why i was in hospital and why i couldn’t do stuff like everybody else. people automatically assumed i was making it up so i resulted in keeping it private, so no one besides my family knew i was suffering. it got to my final year of high school (when i was finally diagnosed with my condition after years of research, testing and specialist visits) and my health was as at an all-time low just as the final exams approached, the exams that would determine my career and university admittance. i could no longer write due to my immense pain and i struggled to get out of bed. i was so hesitant to speak up but then i thought of you and how you would always speak up about injustices and how much you care about your fans. i thought, “taylor wouldn’t want me hiding my suffering, she wrote a whole album about speaking up, speak now!”. i eventually told my teachers at school and they were so understanding and helped me to get a writer and rest breaks for my exams. i had never had a writer before so this was quite a difficult adjustment just a month before exams commenced. i ended up going so well, i got an 89.20 ATAR and i was nominated by one of my teacher’s for the brother john taylor memorial prize for students who have overcome significant hardships during their HSC exams. i actually won the award and was given a trophy by the minister of education at sydney parliament house. i was actually written about in a newspaper, i was on the front page in a RED dress and had a whole article about me on page 4!
here’s a link if you would like to read the article: https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5305386/praise-for-hunter-student-who-overcame-significant-adversity-to-achieve-outstanding-results/
it feels so crazy going from keeping it private to getting an award at parliament house and being front page on a newspaper. i’m now at university studying to be an early childhood and primary school teacher and educator. i thank you and my mum everyday for all your encouragement. my mum has helped me every step of the way and so have you even if you don’t realise. you may not know that i exist but your positive presence and source of happiness in my life has assisted me in being a resilient, fearless and isn’t afraid to be proud of the barriers i have had to overcome to get where i am today. i’m so much more confident because of you and i couldn’t possibly thank you enough. i hope to one day thank you in person.
my mum and i have seen you two times in concert, the red tour in sydney on december 4, 2013 and the 1989 world tour in sydney on november 28, 2015 (i was actually staying in a hotel across the road from the stadium and heard you sound checking the night before, i had tears running down my face from excitement!!!). we get to see you again in sydney on november 2, 2018 for another exciting mother and daughter weekend seeing the reputation world tour. i’ll be in section 133-1, row 22, seats 48-49 (hope you enjoy my sneaky word and number references in bold hehe).
love you ever so much @taylorswift @taylornation,
from your loving and adoring fan, hayley.
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