Illness and me

Sometimes, it's easy for us to look at our lives and pick out and be sad about the bad things in our lives. It's human and it's normal, and occasionally it's helpful to let things out and we're allowed to be sad when things aren't going so well.

For me, I know about the suboptimal things that have been, and are going on. But I know that whether I'm sick or not, I'm still me, and nothing short of a personality transplant can, and will change that. Even though it's a big part of me and has implications on a lot of things I do, there's so much more to me than Ehlers-Danlos, AVM, osteomyelitis and everything else put together.

I'm happy. Happy with everything that my life is at this moment, and I hope none of that is set to change. There are people who will ask me all the time how I am, and how my "hospital life" is getting on, and sometimes I wish they wouldn't. A lot of the time, they mean well, and want to know how I'm doing. I just hope that people don't think that I'm defined by illness, because I'm not.

I don't think I'd be the person I was without everything that's happened over the past few years. On the outside, it seems like a rotten deal, but the experience has helped me to learn how to deal with things, and I'm no longer feeling lost. It might sound strange, but I feel like everyone else, and like how I used to. Physically, of course I know that I feel different, but my mind has adapted to that to help me move on and get back to achieving what I was achieving before this came along.

I hope that people aren't sad for me when things happen because I don't like seeing people upset when I'm feeling okay and when I know that everything will be fine. Instead of people looking in from the outside and being sad, I want to take people with me on my journey and show them everything that I've learnt. So, if you'll let me, I want you to come and join me, and learn too that living in my shoes isn't as distant and alien as it seems, even if I may unintentionally imply that through my words sometimes.