For the first time in two years, I’ve started the year healthy… and by ‘healthy’, I mean not in recovery from an MS relapse. A definite win.

I also happen to be the happiest I have been in a very long time. Part of the happiness stems for my other writing project We Don’t Talk About, where I interview people living with chronic or life-threatening diseases.

In 2016 my LadywithMS posts will become monthly as I concentrate on telling other people’s stories… stories that I think we, as a society, need to talk about. After all, one in five Australians have a chronic disease, and a lot more are currently battling a life-changing (or life threatening) disease.

And while most of us are pretty good at asking about the treatment plan or taking care of the cooking and cleaning, not enough of us are willing to talk about everything else that comes with disease: emotional upheaval, discrimination and stigma, inability to work, financial strain, relationship breakdown, loss of sex drive, temporary or permanent disability, and sometimes thoughts of dying.

We Don’t Talk About is a place to share the stories of ordinary people – I have no doubt you know some of them – going through life changing experiences. And it is a place to start the conversations we should all be having.