“ For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
I have been helping with a program designed to support people who have been newly diagnosed with blood cancer. I felt really excited to be participating, as I felt like this was a way to use my experience in a useful way that helps others. Besides, I had tried almost everything to manage my own health conditions over the years, from alternative therapies to most diets. I have a lot of experience, as they say I have been there, done that and got all the t-shirts.
There were times when my whole life revolved around my bedroom, specifically my bed as I was unable to go downstairs as I couldn’t walk and had to slide and crawl everywhere. There were times when I experienced fatigue so extreme that I would miss hours of the day and I would wake up not knowing where the day went.
There were times I was on bedrest from surgery, thinking about everyone else I knew getting on with their lives. I remember looking out of the hospital window thinking about all the things I was missing. I noticed the freedom that the birds had to move around when I could barely lift my body upright to eat. I remember hearing the rumble of planes travelling to places I could not go. Not to mention the hustle and bustle of the traffic passing by. These sights and sounds were all confirmations that life was going on and happening without me.
The thing with chronic pain is that it’s an all encompassing all consuming whole body experience that you would rather not have everyday. However, you know that everyday without fail it’s coming for you today, the next day and the day after that. It’s with you the moment you wake up, to the moment you fall asleep. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your pain levels might dip low enough for you to actually fall asleep at a reasonable time. All whilst knowing that when you wake up, you will not feel rested at all.
I realised that a lot of what has happened over the years in regard to my health became more manageable when I realised that I was not my health condition. It was just part of my story and that there is value in all the seasons of my life, even the difficult ones.
I became much happier when I had this realisation as there was now space for me to feel happy again. Regardless of whatever diagnosis I had, I was still my whole complete self and whatever challenges were thrown my way were just additions to my very elaborate life story.
The opportunity to participate in this research is enabling me to give back to many others who I will probably never meet, but I am in a position to suggest things that might help them live a happier and more fulfilling life which really is a beautiful thing.
It also made me reflect on death and the fact that we are all dying from the moment we are born and just because we know that, doesn’t mean that we stop living or forget to live because we are fixated on our inevitable deaths. A flower does not decide not to grow because it is going to die. It always chooses to bloom, because that was what it was designed for. The truth is chronic illness sucks, but your life doesn’t have to.
With Love, Tara x
