This week I’m chatting with Jenny Taylor. Jenny has had a long and unfair journey with her health and wellbeing. After seriously injuring her back and undergoing spinal surgery, Jenny finally thought her health woes were behind her. That feeling was short lived as this was just the beginning.

Deep down Jenny knew something wasn’t right with her body. She was losing feeling in her limbs and it could no longer be put down to ‘back related pain’.

After 9 months, a mountain of tests, doctors’ appointments and feeling like she was losing her mind, Jenny was diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy or CIDP for short. CIDP is an incurable, rare neurological disorder that progressively gets worse over time. While grateful for the validation of her symptoms, this diagnosis was mind numbing.

In this episode Jenny explains CIDP and we discuss her diagnosis and prognosis. We chat about starting a new job straight after the diagnosis and how she has dealt with her career ending well before it should.

We discuss her early career, how childhood relationships influenced her workplace behaviours and Jenny gives some great tips for people pleasers.

Jenny talks candidly about how she has planned for the inevitable decline in her health and how true friendships have helped her through some really dark days. Despite such adversity, Jenny remains upbeat with a goal of one day competing at the Paralympics.

UPDATE: Since recording this podcast Jenny has been told that she is medically unable to fulfil her dream of being a Paralympian. Knowing Jenny, I’m sure she has her next goal already in the pipeline.

If you’d like to know more about Jenny you can follow her on Instagram or LinkedIn. Jenny also has a Blog which details the start of her journey to now.

If you would like to know more about CIDP or you’re interested in donating to further research and support for CIDP and other neurological disorders, you can head to www.brainfoundation.org.au or www.gbs-cidp.org

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