Health Advice Info Article:
Its going to take courage
For some of us, disease is our constant companion. We suffer, we adapt. We educate ourselves and try to understand. We strive to appreciate the good days and make it through the bad ones. Always, however, in our hearts and in the back of our minds, is the fear factor. We fear many things. I'm not certain what your fears may be, although I think I could guess many of them; therefore, I will tell you what I fear, in the hope that you will relate to some of them.
I fear my inability to cope with the daily pain and discomfort. I fear many of the complications of my particular disease. I fear the constant change - this change and misery which has brought on a loss of my vocation, income and provoked a necessary change of lifestyle. I fear the effect this change in me and my life has on those I love. I fear the change in my appearance. Vanity, thy name is woman, and I am not ashamed of the fact.
Even though I am a nurse, I am most often now a patient. I still fear going to a new doctor. I fear the indifferent one. I fear that glazed-over look in his eyes when I reel off my list of symptoms. It is such a blow to one's self-esteem to have something which has devastated my life so completely, treated lightly by a fellow member of the medical profession. I fear the possible side effects of any new drug. I fear many medical procedures, maybe because I know too much about them. I fear the constant deterioration of this shell I live in, my body. I often feel I am in a race, a race for my life. TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK. Many days, I know I am losing. But other days, I do well just to (metaphorically) run in place.
I fear the further loss of my dreams and my hopes, for that is what life is made of, isn't it? What is the scariest fear of all? No, not death, because I believe that to be a peaceful place. I would have to say the scariest dread of all is the fear of uselessness. To be useful to one's self and to others, that is the substance of life.
The sense of accomplishment that comes with the most simple activities of day-to-day life: cleaning house, folding laundry, grocery shopping. I fear dependence on others for those chores. I want to choose my own groceries, keep my home clean enough for my frustration level to survive, provide a pleasant environment for my husband as well as myself. Perhaps, I can't garden and care for a whole yard full of flowers as I once did, but I can nurture and coax along a potted tree, a porch full of flowering scented geraniums and a hanging flower basket or two. These things give me pleasure and they keep the fear away from my heart. I want to feel well enough, always, to perform little acts of affection and love toward my children and grandchildren, such as baking a batch of cookies with them, taking a walk along the river or baking a special birthday cake.
Living with chronic pain and illness takes a truckload of courage. It takes courage, some days, just to get out of bed, get cleaned up and face the coming day. It takes courage to shut up about it and keep many things to myself and not dump them onto a loved one or friend, simply for 30 seconds of sympathy. I have come to see this whole area of talking about my health differently than I did 15 years ago. To me, to tell a relative or friend the details of my suffering is to ask them to carry a heavy load. It is to say, "Here, put this pile of weights on your back and tote it around for awhile." Is that an act of love? I don't think so. A prayer that I have loved and remembered for many years is from the actress Rosalind Russell who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She said, "Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on aches and pains. They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by."
It is often an act of will to keep this "thing" from taking over every aspect of my life and my husband's life. It takes courage to continue to seek help. I takes courage to keep on keeping on. When I exercise, lift a light weight, watch what I eat, it isn't because I'm such a "good girl," it's done because I'm afraid. Fear of immobility and dependency drives me on.
It also takes courage in dealing with friends and acquaintances. Many of them have no idea that I have been to another place, perhaps a place they have not visited. My life is unusual. It is a complete departure from the rat race, the competition for more and better which dominates our society. Some of that simply doesn't matter to me anymore. That may make me an anomaly, I realize. It doesn't make me better or worse, just different. My angle of vision has changed.
Where does one find courage? I guess it's different for everyone. Some find it in a deep religious faith. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills." Others find it in the arms of a loving family and their mutual need to give and partake in family love. For others, it is a matter of personal courage. I guess I embrace all three. If I have one life to live, I choose to do it with as much dignity as I can muster, as much pleasantness as humanly possible under some unpleasant circumstances and with enough personal honor to still like myself.
Remember, courage is not the absence of fear. It is facing the challenge anyway, head high, eyes straight ahead to do battle as a soldier in this army of life. Fear? It doesn't matter. Take it along with you. It's going to trail along anyway and having courage to face all that lies ahead gives us control over our own lives. Courage my friends, courage.
Sue Falkner Wood
Sue's blog can be found at http://blog.healthtalk.com/chronicpain/
For more information, articles and programs about living with chronic pain please visit http://healthtalk.com/
Related Health News and Articles From ezinearticles.com
If you are suffering from wrinkles, eye bags and dark circles underneath your eyes above more you want get rid from these and control the signs of aging. You need to have good diet, take a lot of rest and use a extreme level sun protection in order to stop the problem getting worse but an excellent eye cream is a big help to see improvement on aging problems.
It's no secret that other than a leisure activity, using saunas can provide you with a host of benefits. These benefits can be enjoyed either in the privacy of one's home or at the health club. There are prefabricated ones which are sold at hardware stores or even online. They may be installed in the bathroom, basement or even outdoors such as by the pool. If you find such things expensive, you may simply use the one in the health club you're attending.
When you get fed up with seeing the same setup in your dining room and long for some change, it is time to bring in some nice topical design dinnerware. See the difference it makes to your dinners. You will not only be creating a new look at the dining table, but instilling a new enthusiasm with the rest of the family in eating too.
We all know the great benefits of saunas in helping to recover after a hard workout, or to relive pent up tension and frustration when visiting a hotel or luxury resort. What few people realize is that saunas have many more benefits than these. In fact there are a wide variety of benefits that can be enjoyed by having access to a sauna at home.
How to gain height is an issue that is searched by thousands of people every day. By that fact alone, you can tell that this is a huge problem that people are having. Its not only a huge factor when it comes to dating, but having a short stature can affect those who have dreams of becoming an an air hostess, army, pilot, navy and various other career endeavors.
The latest report from British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that when you are being barefoot, the foot neural control can be keenly feel the terrain and the angle of the foot. It help to change the joint hypothesis so that you won't feel too tired. There have been a measure that made by the Australian researchers about the foot sensitivity of seventeen women's football players.
It's not surprising to find that thousands of people a day search for ways to grow taller. This is completely normal because we're all different people, and we all have different issues. A person's height plays a huge role in many areas of their life.
Have you ever experienced this? You strolled out of the front door to go to work and said to yourself, "Dang, it is gonna be a hot one today?" You continue with your walk to the bus stop and you realize that you are beginning to sweat; but you're not all that worried since you remembered, of course, to shower and put on some deodorant. Your bus is heading around the corner, you line up to get on, shove through the crowded area to get to the middle and you are headed to work without any second thoughts.
Abnormal sweating, billions of people experience this problem. This condition isn't an ordinary case of sweating on a summer afternoon; no, this issue can afflict a person anytime. The scientific name for abnormal, extreme sweating is Hyperhidrosis. Typically the person has excessive sweat from their armpit, but many people also have to face perspiration from their hands, face or feet.
Gout is a painful ailment that has been around for millennia. Gout symptoms include redness, swelling, and tophi. Tophi is the buildup of uric acid crystals which results in a protrusion.
