This is one of the most challenging thing for those of us with chronic illness to explain to those in our life… so often with chronic illness symptoms are vast and varying, and just because I might be able to meet up and with our dogs today, or drive to the store, or even perhaps do a light yoga workout, doesn’t mean that I will be able to the next day… nor does it mean I am being overly dramatic about my condition. Just like anyone in a healthy body loves to use lots of energy on the weekends, and do lots of fun, entertaining, engaging things, or while on vacation and sometimes come home feeling worn out and needing a day to recover from vacation… those of us with chronic illness like to make the best use of our low-symptom days, and the precious energy we do have doing things we enjoy when we can. But the next day could be the day a migraine hits, or our blood pressure is struggling to allow us to be up-right for very long, perhaps we have increased shortness of breath, brain-fog, one of many frequent infections, or our bodies simply just plain do not have the energy to do much more than the bare requirements of the day.
Life with chronic illness is an everyday challenge, and often like a roller coaster ride we are not allowed off… with ups some days, and downs the other. It takes a lot of self-discipline, and deep listening to our bodies, to access what each day’s limits are for us, and the self-love and compassion to listen to what our bodies need even when it is not what our hearts want. We wish we were well, we wish we could spend time with you, we wish we didn’t have to continually change, cancel, re-arrange plans… but this is just our life, and we are just doing the best we can.
Comments