Toni Street has taken to Instagram to reflect on the extreme toll an auto-immune disease took on her body, and how far she’s come four years on from the height of her sickness.
“TBT 2015… when the ABs last brought home the World Cup,” she wrote alongside a photo of her and All Black Beauden Barrett.
“ME… super bloated in the middle of steroid pulses, hair falling out, paper thin skin, moon faced, painful joints!
“Sometimes it’s good to remember how far you’ve come,” she continued.
“4 years on from this photo I’m so thankful to be well for now and only on a low dose of steroids. Those battling the nasty side effects autoimmune diseases bring, I feel you, I get it, stay strong.”
It was around the time the photo was taken that the then-Seven Sharp presenter first revealed she’d be suffering from Churg-Strauss syndrome, a rare auto-immune disease which, unbeknown to Toni, has been attacking her body for almost six years.
Speaking to Woman’s Day, the 35-year-old admitted the ordeal had “been pretty horrible.
“If someone had told me six months ago that I was about to go through all this, I just don’t know what I would’ve thought, but it’s amazing how resilient you can be when you’re faced with these things. I have had some very dark moments, though, when I’ve worried I’m not going to be around to look after my girls – and that’s been tough.”
At its worst, Toni was in the early stages of organ failure and facing the terrifying prospect she could die from the disease.
She went into remission in 2017, however the effects of the disease meant she couldn’t carry another much-longed-for child. That’s when her childhood friend Sophie Braggins famously stepped in and offered to carry the child for them.
Little Lachie was born in August last year and last week the family celebrated his first birthday and christening in a double celebration.
