This is my monthly post which I link up with Sheryl’s Chronic Illness link Up Party. This month I’m talking about Waiting, Parting, Perservering, Affirming and Love. This is also doubling up as my first Blogtober 2019 post.
Waiting
Last month was not a good month. I’m still waiting for test results, but this is the second lot and the first came back clear. If these are clear then once again my symptoms will be put down to Stiff Person Syndrome. When you have a chronic illness, everything that goes wrong seems to be blamed on your current illness.
I’m also waiting for my daughter’s genetic and chromosome test results. I know these take a long time, but when the time I was given arrives I always get anxious. I’m praying so hard they don’t find something serious. Coping with her illness was hard enough when I was well, I can’t bear the thought that she may have worse to come.
Parting
In August a friend I’ve known for about 15 years passed away after a long battle of cancer. She was buried last week. It was a sad parting. I still can’t believe she’s gone. I’m not afraid of death, but grief is so hard to deal with. I hate to think of the suffering of my friends family, especially her husband who is not well himself, and her two children. It’s so sad.
This month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I’ll be posting about it on my Social media accounts. This affects so many people, more needs to be done to help. Ironically, yesterday I had my first ever mammogram.
Perservering
Oh my, this has been a tough month health wise. I’ve suffered so much. Some days I feel I can’t go on like this but it’s my family that keeps me going. There is no way I would leave them intentionally so I have to keep perservering with trying to make life better for me and for them. Some days it’s so, so difficult to carry on. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to carry on with my life and do all the things that need doing, but sometimes even the simplest tasks take so much out of me.
What choice do I have? Sometimes it seems hopeless, I keep suffering and I know my family suffer by watching. But I will keep perservering in trying things that will make things better for us all.
“Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
Affirmation
I truly believe that the brain is stronger than the body. Mind over matter. Sometimes it’s all I have. So I continue with the self help, keeping my affirmations, telling myself that I can get better and believing it. I take time to live in the moment. I love reminiscing about the past, but it won’t make it come back. Making plans for the future is fun, but you can’t live something that hasn’t happened yet. So, the only thing you can do is live for today. Get through one day at a time, good or bad and look for the things that make me happy.
I love my Little Man and Boo coming home from school and coming to give me a hug. Star is not the hugging type, she’s like huggin an ironing board! I was feeling unwell the other day and she gave me a very rare hug, it meant everything to me. The hugs off my children keep me going, even my big kids hug me. (As a side note, I barely remember hugging my Mum, apart from when she was in hospital, and after she had died. I guess I was an ironing board too, but my kids have taught me otherwise.)
Back to Affirmations, I’ve been reading a lot of Matt Haig lately and he seems to speak to me. I love this quote.
“Make sure, as often as possible, you are doing something you’d be happy to die doing.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans
Love
As I said, I’ve had a bad month health wise, so reading has been my friend. I’ve loved reading Matt Haig, but I’m also halfway through a very sweet classic book, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I think I may stear away from some of my usual murder mystery type novels and maybe add a little romance to my reading. After all, they say, all you need is love.
“No one will understand you. It is not, ultimately, that important. What is important is that you understand you.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans
I’ve never really classed myself as a romantic. I’ve always found the conception of love quite difficult. I mean with family it’s unconditional and that love I find comes naturally. But loving others I find difficult. I think my life needs a little more love.
When my friend passed recently, it was obvious how much she was loved. Am I loved like that? I thought that the way to find love was to please people all the time, or shower them with kindness or help. But, some people just don’t respond in the way you would expect. Love is a strange old thing, and I don’t just mean romance.
“Maybe love is just about finding the person you can be your weird self with.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
Thank you for reading my round up this week, by clicking the picture below you can visit Sheryl’s link up and see how other’s have interpreted these prompts.
Read last months writing prompts here, The meaning of Life, the Universe and Chronic Illness.
Blogtober Posts
- Blotgober Day 1 – All You Need is Love
- Blogtober Day 2 – Coppafeel- Breast Cancer Awareness
- Blogtober Day 3 – Out of Spoons (a poem)
Blogtober Linky
See Other bloggers Blogtober posts.
It is pretty rotten that everything is blamed on Stiff Person Syndrome when it could be something else.
Good luck with the results. Poor Star. She has really been through it. I hope there is nothing else with her to deal with!
So sorry about your friend. Sending love and hugs! It doesn’t sound like a great time for you at all xx
I find reading Matt Haig’s stuff helpful when having a struggle too. Hope October treats you better #blogtober
Sorry to hear you are going through so much. I hope you enjoy Blogtober and get some useful results soon. Good luck.
I am so sorry for your loss, it is so hard to say a final goodbye, I have a post going live tomorrow for breast cancer awareness #blogtober
One thing I never liked about having a condition is that no matter what doctors will blame that condition for everything. This infernal vertigo I have… of Course it is from migraines. Until they did some tests and an MRI and … eeehhh that didn’t look right at all. We shall see if they will brush all that off and go with vestibular migraines anyway. Which I deeply feel is wrong from the way this started and never stopped…. while on the best vestibular preventative migraine medication no less. So I do not like it when they do that but they do it all the time. All my life they have done that for various things… expecially fibro. All fibro. So I get you on that.
I dearly hope your daughter’s genetic test comes back better than you expect. That is what we want for children… all the best things in the world.
Reading is my go-to for coping with pain but the vertigo has made that rather difficutlt so I read just a wee bit a day… I’ll take what I can get. I read fantasy fiction though. And lately some non-fiction. But the fact the vertigo has taken that from me and I can’t like dive into a book for hours is rather depressing to me. So I write instead. We have to take what we can get.
Since I’ve not been able to read much I’ve turned to audio books, I love them.
“Get through one day at a time, good or bad and look for the things that make me happy.” What a great way to envision what perseverance can be. I also love your refrence to the hugs of your little and big people. That personal contact and encouragement mean so much in the life of the chroniclly ill. I hope you don’t mind, I’m praying for your daughter’s and your health! 😉
You made me feel guilty for bleating in a self-pity party post when you have far more to contend with than I do. Having said that I also need to thank you deeply because your post made me cry with some of those Haig quotes especially that last one. I feel so unaccepted in my marriage and crave someone loving me for being just me warts and all. Maybe I need to do that for myself for now and you helped me today #Blogtober19
no persons suffering is any worse than any others because it’s all so personal. I am sorry that you feel unaccepted though. I think I’ve spent my whole life wanted to be loved for who I am, but I know I’m not an easy person to love. Matt Haig is wonderful, but he has been lucky in love, it sounds like his wife has had to deal with a lot and I’m sure it’s not all been plain sailing, but his love for her is so apparant and she has stuck by him through it all. x
You’ve reminded me of how much I enjoyed ‘i capture the castle’ although I couldn’t tell you too much about it! Just that lingering feeling of enjoying a really good book.
I agree with you about love being a funny thing. Loving ourselves always the first and best thing we can do.
Thanks for joining us again Anne. I am so sorry for your loss 🙁 Grief is a tough one to deal with, and it does comes in waves. Love the Matt Haig quotes as well, so applicable to daily life. Sending lots of hugs and strength xxx
Hello for another month, Anne.
I am sorry that it has been a difficult month for you. I do hope things turn around for you soon.
Oh, the joys of having new and unexplained symptoms blamed on the diagnosis we have already accumulated. I have been through this so much, having symptoms that I was experiencing being blamed on anxiety, refusing to search for another possible cause for them. There are so many conditions that are often co-morbid with other ones, a fact seemingly forgotten by medical professions.
Like you I love to read so thank you for your wonderful recommendations. When you love books and reading as much as me you are always searching for new reads. I’m currently reading the follow-up to P.S. I Love You. So good!
Take care of yourself and hope October is kinder to you.
Rhiann x
Hi Anne. This is my first time to your site. So excited to meet you and dig a little deeper into all your work here.
I hope your second test has more answers for you. I hear you. It’s super annoying when they blame it on something else you already have and you know it’s new or not normal.
I’m so sorry to hear about your friend passing. Coping with the loss of a loved with, especially when you’re sick, is so hard. I’ve never been able to write about my losses, so I think you’re brave to do so. Sending gentle hugs. I hope Matt Haig continues to help ease your sorrow during this difficult time.
I’m sorry you’ve been having such a rough time. “When you have a chronic illness, everything that goes wrong seems to be blamed on your current illness.” That really hit the nail on the head. They like to just brush everything under the one diagnosis. It’s what puts me off seeing my GP. I hope you get some answers with the results your waiting on for you and your daughter. Your ironing board hug made me smile. It’s amazing in the same family how differently we all express our love. By the sounds of it you have a lot of it going around in your family. They are very blessed to have you. x
Thank you for sharing, Anne!
I also hate the tendency of doctors to blame symptoms on the diagnoses we already have instead of double-checking. I feel fortunate that I do have doctors willing to do those double-checks when needed! Then again, there are some diagnoses that are, themselves, worthless.
I’m hoping you get the best possible news from both your testing and your daughter’s – you deserve more happiness and relief!
I am so sorry to hear of your friend’s passing – my condolences – loss like that is so hard. Please give yourself some space to breathe and be sure you let yourself grieve this loss. Take care of yourself! *gentle hugs*