Chronic Illness Is A Roller Coaster Ride

Living with chronic illness and chronic pain is like being on a roller coaster at times. There are highs and there are lows.There are good times and there are bad times and sometimes we just have to hold on and ride the curves.

image from chroniccurve.tumblr.com

Being chronically ill is not a choice but how we deal with it is. The past week has been the barreling down the roller coaster and has not been pleasant but my choice was would I make it worse or  would I hold on and make the ride a little less bumpy by my attitude.

Sometimes when all you can do is lay here and breathe and not so well at that part, everyone wonders what you can do. What I do is to use my mind to relieve some of the stress. I try to lighten my load by taking myself mentally to “places” that bring some pleasure and when you do that…your whole body relaxes and healing can occur faster.

I call Gabriel my therapy doll. One day I dream of owning a little girl one as I never got to have my daughter. I lost a child between my sons and always believed that was my daughter. Anyway..that is on my bucket list…to own a silicone girl doll. I use Gabriel for visualization for when I feel bad and the pain is high, I can hold him and he is weighted just like a real baby and feels like you are holding a real baby. I can hold him and rock in the recliner or lay here propped up on my hospital bed, and close my eyes and take myself back to the days of holding my sons when they were little or my grand baby when she was a baby. And oh the joy those visualizations bring. Son says he can see the smile come and my brow relax which in turn means my body and inner core is relaxing which helps my breathing. When we fight against our health or against the pain we only make it worse. These things to relax myself, etc are  choices I make for my healing.

I am sitting up today on the edge of my hospital bed here typing to you all. I am a little weak and shaky but that is ok. This too shall pass. My choice has been to remain calm and to do the things I needed to do in order to get better…staying on top of my meds, faithfully using my nebulizer machine no matter how bad I felt, eating some to keep nutrition in me, and using the visualization, etc to help ease my pain and the stress on my system.

It is amazing how bright the day looks when we start that climb back up the mountain. It is like the rainbow after the storm and the world seems a little cleaner and clearer and there is a sparkle to things.

I can not thank you all enough for your prayers and love. It reminded me of a time a few years ago when  I was coming out of a building in the rain. When you use forearm crutches to go a short distance, there is no extra hand to hold an umbrella. I was walking slowly with my head down towards my car and the wind was blowing and the rain was coming down pretty hard. My focus was getting to the car when suddenly the rain stopped hitting me. I raised my head to see if the rain had stopped and realized someone had come up behind me and was holding an umbrella over me. That was you all the past few days…you had an umbrella of love and prayers over me to stop the storms from battering so hard. And all I can say is thank you from the depths of my heart.

image from jillmreid.wordpress.com

It seems like sometimes all a person does is thank God for the good things in their lives. I have learned to thank God for all things in my life. I thank Him for the struggles in my health for they make me appreciate all the good things more. I thank him for the pain in my legs and feet for I am blessed because at least I have legs and feet. Some people do not.   I thank him for the past few days for even though I have had trouble breathing…I can still breathe. Some people can not.And so I thank God for the past few days because even in spite of all the sickness, I have found reasons to smile and been blessed with people who truly cared about my health.

And so, today, I shall take a few steps and keep taking a few steps until I am a little stronger and continue this battle. My friend sassy says  “Lord use me all up….just take your time doing it”.  I know that I will be here until God decides to take me home and my prayer is He uses me to touch others and to help others keep going even when it is tough and that He takes His time using me up.

Looks better, yes?