In the weeks leading up to University, I met one of my now closest friends Vics, and we immediately became friends. When we moved up to university, we were in a lot of the same seminars and ended up spending a lot of time together. One day after a seminar, we had an essay to work on so we had one of our regular Costa trips. I remember Vics seeming slightly off and worried on this particular day, which I realise now was because she was going to tell me about her diagnosis of MRKH. When she told me, my first reaction was that it didn’t change my opinion of her whatsoever and that I didn’t understand why she was so worried about telling me. She explained what MRKH meant, as I hadn’t heard of it before, and told me about previous people’s negative reactions. I think we sat in Costa for a few hours speaking about it all, which allowed me to understand completely what it meant. I knew then, because of the horrible reactions she had from ‘friends’ in the past, that I wanted to help and show my support to her however I could.
In the beginning, helping Vics mainly involved walks and getting her out of the house on her bad days. She had a really rough time towards Christmas of last year, but I’m so proud of her for getting through it. I eventually followed her MRKH Instagram account and showed my support by liking her posts on there and speaking things over when she was upset. After the hard time she had last year, she managed to develop MRKH Stars, which, as we all know, is a charity to help young people who have been diagnosed with MRKH. I knew that if I had the opportunity to help, I really wanted to get involved, which is why we developed the friends and family aspect of Stars. I really enjoy running this scheme as it allows me to show my support of Vics and the wider MRKH community. I have also been lucky enough to become a Trustee and Secretary of Stars, which is amazing for me as I’m able to really get involved!
In the future, I would really like to continue to get involved in Stars and helping Vics (and anyone else) however I can. I have really enjoyed becoming a part of the community and meeting so many new people because of it. Vics has helped me through a lot lately, so it is nice that I’m able to help her, one of my bestest friends, through the charity as well. I know she will continue doing amazing things and helping people through the charity and I hope to always be a part of it!