This is Day 33 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.

Illness is a part of life. We all get colds and the flu. Some of us get things that are a little more long term. It is not that diagnosis that determines the rest of our lives, it is how we live with that diagnosis that determines our lives.

When the CRPS started, I couldn’t see a way out. I was desperate for anything that could help. I thought my life was over. I read story after story on the internet about how people lost their lives to this disease. How they couldn’t work and lost their friends. Each story was as heartbreaking as the next. I was a wreck and I was lost.

I am not sure that I have come to grips with my diagnosis and what it means for the rest of my life. I am not sure that I have come to grips with what it means for this part of my life. But what I do know is that it is not my whole life. I know that the illness has taught me that every day is a gift, even if it is terrible. I know that now life is about the adventure and not so much the party.

Illness is a terrible thing, but it can change your life for the better, if you let it.

Share the positivity on Twitter, Instagram and Google+ with the hashtag #100positivedays. Also, you can sign up to be emailed a recap each week of the challenge.