So, the other day I was checking the mail and,
BAM!
… a letter from the Crohn’s And Colitis Foundation of Canada asking for a donation. I stood and gawked at the letter with a little light rain pattering on my head and thought “Oh yeah! I have Crohn’s Disease…. right…. bummer…”
This isn’t to say that I’ve been completely unaware… I’ve just been so wrapped up in living life, running a household and, well, being busy that for once in a long while I haven’t had time to really think about it. I sort of forgot about it. My symptoms have been very mild, and taking my 3 Salofalk tablets twice a day has become a habit. I haven’t really brooded on things in a long time.
That’s a good thing… and a bad thing!
It’s nice for once to be living a ‘normal’ life where you don’t have to worry constantly about what you can eat and where the restrooms are. It’s nice to not be wearing the label of ‘sick’ and to have the people around you stop thinking of you that way. It’s a joy to have a calendar that isn’t full of doctor appointments and a purse not full of pills. It’s indescribable to not have a constant droning level of pain and exhaustion following you around every second of every day.
On the other hand…. as nice as it is to feel well and living unburdened by medical worries, it’s not something that I really want to forget about. Strange right? I want to always remember that I have a chronic illness that will probably return one day to knock me spinning. Why? Because remembering puts things in perspective. It reminds me to appreciate everything. It helps me to avoid procrastination, to get things done now while I can. It makes every day taste sweeter when I know that just a couple years ago I was not able to do all the things I can do now. Time to play with my son, outings on the weekends and just having the energy to work in the garden for a couple hours are blessings that I never want to take for granted.
So while it may have been nice to go on blissfully forgetting for a little while, I want to give my head a shake and remember to live every day to it’s fullest. No matter what you’re facing, you have many blessings just waiting to be counted. Get to it!
