This is Day 90 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
All you need is love. Sort of. Well, not really, but close enough. When it comes to needs, respecting our personal needs is important. Heck, it might be one of the most important things there is.
This is Day 89 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
Everything is impossible until someone does it. And so many more things seem impossible that really aren’t. No matter how difficult the challenge, no matter how tangled the string, nothing is impossible.
This is Day 88 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
Walls are meant to be broken down the way rules are meant to be broken. We’re meant to break down the walls that get in our way. We’re supposed to tear down the walls that we build up around our hearts.
I haven’t been so good at breaking down walls in my life; I’ve been damn good at building them. Particularly around my heart.
When I was first going through treatment for the CRPS, an old acquaintance complained that I was writing updates about my condition on Facebook. I was in bad shape and couldn’t go out often, so I kept people in the loop via Facebook. Well, that comment shut me up. I didn’t post any more updates about the chronic pain for nearly a year. To this day it makes me think twice about sharing my journey through any social network or blog.
A year and a half later, I started an new job and kept the chronic pain a secret from my new coworkers for 6 months. I am really good at telling friends and family that I am a-ok even when I am having a particularly bad day. I spent a good couple years pushing away everyone who cared about me because I watched this condition take its toll on everyone I knew. And when it destroyed a long-term relationship, I knew that I had to lock it all up behind some pretty high walls.
I am currently trying to break those walls down. I’ve shared my condition with my coworkers. My friends now know when I am headed in for a new treatment or when I am having good days. I started writing this blog.
What walls have you built? What walls have you broken down? Share your answer on social media with the hashtag #100positivedays on Twitter, Instagram and Google+.
This is Day 87 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
The beautiful thing about life is that it is filled with choices. You can choose who you want to be and how you want to live. You can choose how you see the world. You can choose to be happy. You can choose to see the glass as half full.
This is Day 86 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
Note to self: it’s worth it. You’re worth it.
This is Day 85 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
This is not about silence falling when the question is asked. It is not the oldest question in the universe. But the answer could very well be 42 (even Google knows it is the answer to life, the universe and everything).
Being inquisitive helps children decode the world around them, and it helps adults find new solutions to problems. When we ask how or why we are exploring ideas. When we question the facts we have been given, we can strengthen their validity. When we question those in charge, be it politicians, doctors or bosses, we can ensure that our best interests are at heart. Questioning our faith does not make us week or believers, it allows us to understand that faith and those beliefs further.
This is Day 84 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
Life, no matter how we live it, is sacred. It is something we can’t get back. It can’t be duplicated, traded in or replaced. (If graphic photos of traffic accidents get to you, don’t click through to the rest of the post)
This is Day 83 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
I am a believer in silver linings. Because if I didn’t, I’d be one miserable human.
This is Day 80 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
A friend of mine told me she never clicked links to this blog when I post them on Facebook. Not because she doesn’t like me. And not because talking about chronic illness made her uncomfortable. It was because she doesn’t think it is fair to paint a picture of sunshine and daisies when it comes to living with a chronic condition. Chronic conditions are hard. They are unfair. Living with one is certainly not all rainbows and frolicking unicorns.
This project is not about painting life in glitter and viewing it from behind rose-colored glasses. It is about accepting reality and finding a way to be positive despite the extra burdens of a chronic illness, life threatening allergies or being a woman in her twenties.
This is currently my reality. Once a week, I spend a day in an outpatient surgical clinic at Rush for a nerve block to tray and quell what we thought was a flare and what I am terrified is a permanent intensifying of the CRPS.
The rest of my reality is that I am staring my 30th birthday in the face. I am busier at work than I have ever been. I am working on projects with high visibility clients. I am writing a food blog and I spend all my spare time reading up on web trends and code-y stuff to stay one step ahead in my career. I squeeze in knitting and drawing when I can steal a minute. I am a flaky friend who forgets to call and check in a little too often. I get to eat at fancy pants restaurants and go to industry events. I travel and give talks about gluten-free baking and web design. I have friends who are all too willing to watch movie marathons and split bottles of wine.
Some days I feel like a million bucks. And others, well, I would just rather hide in my bed all day. And that’s ok.
It surely isn’t a world with pots of gold at the ends of all the rainbows, and I never want to make you think that I found the magic solution to seeing the world that way. All I can do is show you how I celebrate the good despite the bad.
How to you find positives in your reality? Share your answer on social media with the hashtag #100positivedays on Twitter, Instagram and Google+.
This is Day 81 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.
Once you hit a certain age, you start to believe that fairy tales are a fantasy. That the dragons don’t steal princesses. That straw cannot be spun in to gold. That being a princess does not give you the ability to converse with woodland creatures.