Chronic illness 101

Some of you may wonder, "Mhm, how does this whole chronic illness work? What does it really mean to have a chronic illness?" Well here come chronic illness 101, the funny, the sad and the real life truth!

First off chronic illness means that you get to enjoy this for the rest of forever. Yup! You're one of the lucky (or is it unlucky, I can never remember) ones. You might get better, for a while, but it never truly goes away. And living with chronic illness includes the forced smiles and mumbled "me too" when people say: "Aren't you better yet?" Or "that's interesting" when someone, with a fast medical degree from the university of the Google "I heard that if you do X Y or Z you'll be cured" Now don't get me wrong folks, they have the best intentions but they don't quite get it. So a healthy ability to nod and smile is a must for anyone with a chronic illness.

Second planning is key! You will have bad days or weeks or months at time and you need to have an action plan for that. Mine includes an assortment or comfy pjs, an understanding workplace, the go to "fix its" like: a hot bath or eating nothing but rice and maybe an egg for the day, and most important an easily accessible bathroom! Now everyone's action plan will be different and needs to meet their needs and their chronic illness specifically. Even if you and your neighbor have the same diagnosed illness your specific symptoms and struggles would be different so therefore custom action plans are essential.

Third adjust ALL expectations! This is an absolute must for anyone living with a chronic illness. For example at one point during my chronic illness diagnosis journy I wasn't really capable of eating and was dropping weight rapidly so my expectation was to eat something, literally ANYTHING, everyday. This points out a key aspect of expectations as your situation changes so must your expectations. I also encourage kindness first in setting expectations for yourself. You know yourself well you know your capabilities and you know when you're throwing in the towel or overdoing it so honesty with yourself is also key. Finally never feel like you have to justify your expectations for yourself, becuase you don't have too end of story.

Fourth find humor in your situation. I can't think of anyone who finds poop jokes quite as funny as someone living with UC. My family has figured this out and let me tell you nothing makes me happier than getting a poop related meme sent to me. This is not to say that you aren't allowed to have hard moments and cry or pout or shout or whatever you do to express your very real emotions. But being able to find joy and humor in all the odd moments is a super healthy coping mechanism. Full disclosure I have a secret Pinterest board dedicated to amusing poop memes!! So laugh out loud and laugh often, it really is the best medicine.

Finally surround yourself with good people. This can be one of the hardest parts but your life is already hard enough if there are negative people who leave you drained and unhappy after you spend time together cut them out! That sounds harsh sorry just leave that person as a Facebook friend only. As someone who lives with chronic illness you need people who are givers not just takers. You need to be needed, we all do, but you also need people who are willing to cancel plans and just hang at your house while you nap. You need people who see a need and fill a need. Hopefully at least one member of your family is included in the good people group but if not that's okay, people can change don't give up on them. (This is literally why we have facebook) But for now find those good people and keep them close.

In essence having a chronic illness is hard and yet wonderful at times (did you sense the touch of sarcasm? It was definitely there). Maybe this has been informative, maybe someone actually read this (hahaha,now that's funny), maybe this is something that inspires or helps you. I sure hope so!!