The story of Adam
Dobrý deň or should I say hello 🙂 I am Adam but to my followers, I am known as the AI Warrior. I am 12 and was diagnosed with Addison’s disease 4 years ago. Although I was lucky to have a quick diagnosis I am unfortunately still having good and bad days…..mostly suffering in the heat of the roasting hot summers of Slovakia. My mum is Slovak but I grew up in the UK and moved here when I was 5 with my family.
So I mention the heat but that is just one of the problems with my unique illness. But when my bad days do come, I usually just lay down and rest. You see, my Adrenal glands no longer function, so I cannot make cortisol and aldosterone. I have to take steroid pills four times a day to live but they dont always give me what my body needs. Things like the sun shining on me, stress and even my birthday will put me in bed for a day to recover.
My mum, dad and I soon realised that our school, friends and even doctors knew very little about my illness and this was making things even harder on us all. My idea was to spread awareness of my rare illness in a fun and playful way. I started with an idea during lockdown then it became a drawing and then…….the AI Warrior was born. A special warrior who would be fully equipped to cope with heat of the summer, pills to hand and a unique gherkin belt to help with low cortisol days. I love the computer game Fornite and hoped my character would reach the game and the message of my rare illness would then reach millions. Whilst trying to reach Fornite, another support group, ADSHG found me and offered me to be in their summer newsletter and I succeeded. This grew me many followers across the world in Twitter and of those, people learnt of my illness.
Recently, the Slovak version of Life Magazine and The Slovak Association of Rare Diseases also featured my story and my AI Warrior. I am still sitting here baffled how I managed to achieve my goal by spreading awareness with a simple comic character. He is not part of Fornite yet but he is already doing a good job. So I guess you could say, getting Addisons was more of a blessing then a curse. Well I guess this is my story of how I made the AI warrior and I found positive inside a negative.