My Life Palette - Butterfly Pin

It's not so much courageous, Jill, as that I still have things I love about being alive and am not ready to give up and die yet. So I find ways to modify my life to allow me to keep doing what I want and need to--cleaning one room a day, in 5-10 minute bursts, with long breaks in between, or setting up my desk with monitor arms to allow me to put my feet up on the desk surface so that the ankle swelling can go down. Strapping a heating pad to the back of my chair, modifying my diet to limit foods that trigger inflammation, installing a handheld shower instead of a normal showerhead, using only LED lights and UV-blocking window film... but with those modifications, if you were to walk into my home, you wouldn't know I'm dealing with all this, because the house is clean and I'm able to walk normally most days. Avoiding stress is the big challenge, because that's a huge flareup trigger/aggravator.

There's a saying out there that "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have." I started getting sick when I was 28, and became unable to work when I was 30; at that point, I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to just give up on life, or find a way to create a life I love that allows for the extra challenges I have while still letting me have as normal a life as possible. I'll admit that I wasn't sure I could do it at first, but I have, and I've even managed to keep modifying it as the goalposts move when new health issues and complications crop up. It's all in how much you want to live, and in looking at what I CAN do instead of what I'm no longer able to do.