What Keeps You Strong?

I haven't been posting regularly for a while and keep apologising for the lack of activity here.... Im not apologising for anything anymore. Life is a roller coaster and that's that lol.

One of the top ten questions I get from people about my condition, is, "How do you cope with that?" until recently I have found this question near on impossible to answer. What do you mean? I'm not coping, I'm not dealing with it and I just want a way out.

I never understood the question... I just wake up everyday and put one foot in front of the other...sometimes I walk and sometimes I fall. That's just the way it is. I have no choice in the matter really. So COPING never really entered my head.

However, the last couple of months have been a turning point for me. My last clinic appointment left me in tears and all kinds of emotional torment. I was told that I would probably be on TPN for the rest of my life... wowzer, I had never dared to think like that before. Nor do I ever want to think that way again!

I realised that the one thing that holds me together and gets me through the toughest off times is HOPE. Without that, there is only darkness and pain. I have every right to my little piece of hope and no-one should ever take that away. So I'm throwing those words in my mental dustbin and washing away the negative energy. Making someone feel hopeless is not conducive with healing!

It is well documented that health is directly effected by our biological, phycological and social circumstances. So what good can be gained from telling someone with a long term illness that things will never improve? Yes, patients need to know the facts... but in a condition that is still in the infancy of research... How the hell does ANYONE know that? It's not fact it's opinion, based on a lack of knowledge of the work being done by others.

The strength to fight for your life every day comes from a place most people never have to go. It is impossible to answer, "how do you cope?" but what keeps me strong is the hope that one day... things will change!


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