One day you will look back
when you're so far beyond
far from this place that
you're in today
far beyond what words can ever
possibly say
and you'll barely remember the
intensity of this pain
and you'll barely recognize
this bedridden soul
and you'll barely care about
how far you had to go
to get to this place
of freedom.
-H.J Anderson
when you're so far beyond
far from this place that
you're in today
far beyond what words can ever
possibly say
and you'll barely remember the
intensity of this pain
and you'll barely recognize
this bedridden soul
and you'll barely care about
how far you had to go
to get to this place
of freedom.
-H.J Anderson
If you stand still and look around at your current chaos it can cloud your ability to notice the improvements (big or small) that have been made. It's easy to be swept up in the daily pain and struggle to the point of not being able to see the forest for the trees. It's often not until you step back and assess your situation clearly that you might realize some symptoms are gone or less intrusive. For me it took looking back a few years to really see the stark contrast, and that's because healing is not linear; It's a rocky road where old sets of problems get replaced by new sets of problems and that cycle continues ad nauseam. The trick is to look back far enough until you realize that a once persistent symptom might not be there anymore, or perhaps you have more better nights sleep per month than you did prior, etc. They can even be less noticeable victories, like tolerating showers a tiny bit better, or being less sensitive to a supplement you used to only take micro-doses of. Each of these are pieces which should never be overlooked because they are victories in their own right. These are the building blocks of healing. Even if you are still in the thick of it with other symptoms I urge you to cling to the things that are better, and use them as a reminder that your current struggles will fade too. One day you will look back on this exact moment and you won't believe how far you've come. I believe it for me, and I believe it for anyone who is reading this post right now.
It is not lost on me how far I've come. Even when I get frustrated in the here & now I am reminded of where I began and the dark days I never thought I would come out of. I remember being so weak that my mom gave me sponge baths in bed and washed my hair for me in the sink. I remember the agonizing liver and pancreas pain that left me in a ball unable to eat or move and barely breathe. I remember vividly stepping on the scale and looking in the mirror with tears in my eyes because I was skin and bones. My body was so weak, so wore down, and everything I tried to eat caused excruciating pain. I lived on homemade shakes until I developed food allergies to even my shakes, and then I was left with nothing. And oh do I remember the fear and worry that even if I did get hospitalized and needed a feeding tube that there wasn't a formula on the market that I could tolerate due to all my food allergies. So I thought about how this might be it; this might be the end of the road where my body just can't recover and I was beyond help. All of this and more still haunts me because I lived in it for months and years until my spirit was so wore down that I was ready to give up. I didn't think I had the strength for another day, let alone another minute.
But now, as I stand here with my current bag of struggles, I thank God that he didn't let me give up. I thank God that he gave me the fuel to hang on, and that he gave the knowledge to my parents and Doctors to light my way when I couldn't do it for myself. This blog is my place to speak about my health and share everything I have learned along the way. It's also a way to connect and give back to everyone who gave me hope and kept me going as I waded through the darkness. I am still healing, and I'm still working to fix the broken parts of my body and put them back together. But while I share my health struggles on this blog, I don't share much about my personal life due to it being separate (and not the purpose of my blog), and due to me being incredibly private by nature. And it's strange because many of my biggest victories have been in my personal life, and maybe that's because I've reached a place where I'm able to co-exist with my struggles and live a semblance of a life in the mean time. In prior periods of my life I was too sick and wore out to move from my bed for weeks at a time. I'm much more mobile as a whole now, and I'm more nourished and nutritionally stable which allowed me to put on weight and gain strength. I will do a whole post soon with a health update that will include a lot more info, but for this post I just wanted to share that compared to the paragraph above I am leaps and bounds better, even on my bad days. I still face hurdles, flares, and struggles, but my soul is thriving and I have found joy in so many places of my life that I never imagined I would. So please, do not give up. It does get better, it WILL get better.
I have stated this many times before, but I won't give up working to heal until I am 100%. I won't settle for a mediocre version of life and call it a day. I will fight tooth and nail for every single semblance of independence, health, and vitality. I am not there yet, but I am sure as heck a lot closer than I ever was. I will keep this blog updated until the very end; until I take my last pill and can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am healed. Until then I will bring you along on the journey of filling in each missing piece of the puzzle that will make me whole again.
xoxo,
Christina
It is not lost on me how far I've come. Even when I get frustrated in the here & now I am reminded of where I began and the dark days I never thought I would come out of. I remember being so weak that my mom gave me sponge baths in bed and washed my hair for me in the sink. I remember the agonizing liver and pancreas pain that left me in a ball unable to eat or move and barely breathe. I remember vividly stepping on the scale and looking in the mirror with tears in my eyes because I was skin and bones. My body was so weak, so wore down, and everything I tried to eat caused excruciating pain. I lived on homemade shakes until I developed food allergies to even my shakes, and then I was left with nothing. And oh do I remember the fear and worry that even if I did get hospitalized and needed a feeding tube that there wasn't a formula on the market that I could tolerate due to all my food allergies. So I thought about how this might be it; this might be the end of the road where my body just can't recover and I was beyond help. All of this and more still haunts me because I lived in it for months and years until my spirit was so wore down that I was ready to give up. I didn't think I had the strength for another day, let alone another minute.
But now, as I stand here with my current bag of struggles, I thank God that he didn't let me give up. I thank God that he gave me the fuel to hang on, and that he gave the knowledge to my parents and Doctors to light my way when I couldn't do it for myself. This blog is my place to speak about my health and share everything I have learned along the way. It's also a way to connect and give back to everyone who gave me hope and kept me going as I waded through the darkness. I am still healing, and I'm still working to fix the broken parts of my body and put them back together. But while I share my health struggles on this blog, I don't share much about my personal life due to it being separate (and not the purpose of my blog), and due to me being incredibly private by nature. And it's strange because many of my biggest victories have been in my personal life, and maybe that's because I've reached a place where I'm able to co-exist with my struggles and live a semblance of a life in the mean time. In prior periods of my life I was too sick and wore out to move from my bed for weeks at a time. I'm much more mobile as a whole now, and I'm more nourished and nutritionally stable which allowed me to put on weight and gain strength. I will do a whole post soon with a health update that will include a lot more info, but for this post I just wanted to share that compared to the paragraph above I am leaps and bounds better, even on my bad days. I still face hurdles, flares, and struggles, but my soul is thriving and I have found joy in so many places of my life that I never imagined I would. So please, do not give up. It does get better, it WILL get better.
I have stated this many times before, but I won't give up working to heal until I am 100%. I won't settle for a mediocre version of life and call it a day. I will fight tooth and nail for every single semblance of independence, health, and vitality. I am not there yet, but I am sure as heck a lot closer than I ever was. I will keep this blog updated until the very end; until I take my last pill and can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am healed. Until then I will bring you along on the journey of filling in each missing piece of the puzzle that will make me whole again.
xoxo,
Christina
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