In July 2013, I'd just got home from a business trip abroad. Over the next few weeks, I couldn't always talk, would forget words, could often barely walk, and felt sick from the pounding in my head.

I thought it was a bug, something I'd get over within a few days. But it turned out to be a lot bigger than that — so big, in fact, that I nearly fainted while waiting for the train home after work.

When you're worryingly close to the platform edge, that's not really the thing you want to happen.

As I struggled to stick to everyday routines, I was sent home from work to an empty house confused, dazed, and helpless. I'm more of the 'always keep busy'-type, so this new style of life was hard to adjust to.

I made a rare trip to the doctor as I felt I was losing control of myself, and I was signed off from work while they tried to figure out what was going wrong. I was passed from doctor to consultant, to consultant, and back to a doctor.

While I was strapped to various machines and had blood taken for all the tests, I'd get a lot of comments like, "you look well at the moment," or "you're fit and healthy," and "are you stressed?"

One of the consultants was convinced I had migraines — which I know are extremely painful and debilitating — but this wasn't that. There was an extreme fatigue that crept around my body and made every single nerve prickle with pain.

Then, at one lucky moment, I was seen by a doctor who took the time to listen. They heard what I said, not what they thought fit neatly a diagnosis they'd already formed. I was drained after unloading this burden, but it was worth it.

The next day felt like a glorious and more hopeful beginning; the doctor emailed and asked if I'd ever heard of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS).

I opened a search engine faster than you'd believe, and found a list of symptoms that matched exactly how I'd been feeling. There were words like 'brain fog' that even gave a name to problem I'd never been able to articulate clearly.

Next step: tilt table test. This is to mimic some of the effects of the condition, but it sounds more like a scene from a horror film. You're strapped to a table while laying down and they tilt it almost as though you're standing up, but not quite.

These tests were agonising and I spent every moment silently begging for it to end, but it was worth every moment of intensity.

In early January 2014, I got a letter that said I had "moderate to severe PoTS" and suddenly my internal world made more sense. Getting a diagnosis is a strange mix of emotions; you don't want to be ill, but a name makes it feel like there's a plan.

And then, slowly, the broken pieces of me started to form something new.