End of the school year is always such a busy time of the year for us. To try and find any energy at all to write is difficult. I know it might seem funny when I say finding energy to do something as simple as type and think of the words you want to write! For someone who lives a Chronic Life though basic choices can be so difficult to make every day. If all my energy is being used up just to do the things necessary to get through the day then it leaves nothing in the tank! Which leads me to what I wanted to post about today.

Often you might hear people who live a chronic life throwing around the term “Spoonie” saying to one another that they send spoons to one another. There are all kinds ways that those of us with chronic illness use the term but what does it mean? A Spoonie is someone who is living with chronic illness. The term being a Spoonie derives from a post that Christine Miserandino wrote in 2010 called the Spoon Theory. She suffers from Lupus and I would strongly suggest that you go to the post and read it to understand what the theory is all about. The theory itself is was created while Christine was out with a friend for lunch. While at lunch her friend asks her what living with Lupus is like. What followed was the creation of the “Spoon Theory”!

Most people who are healthy start out every day with all kinds of energy to so whatever they want to do. A person living with chronic illness doesn’t have that same energy and has to make choices that result in the use of what precious little energy they have. So to better explain that to her friend she grabbed a bunch of spoons off the table and handed them to her friend saying you now have Lupus. Count the number of spoons you have and that’s all you have for the day. With every choice you make in a day it uses up the spoons. She wanted her friend to have something physical in her hands to hold and then have taken away as she made those choices.

I don’t want to go through the entire theory so you really do have to go and read it for yourself. Its a great way to demonstrate that our daily life is about making choices, and that we only have so many spoons any given day to make those choices with. The spoon theory is an excellent way of showing people on the outside looking in just what daily life is really like living with Chronic Illness. So when you hear people talking about how many spoons it took to do this or how many it took to do that, you’ll have a better understanding of what we are talking about. I guess in some ways its a bit of a secret language but people need to understand that it isn’t something to laugh about. Its a very real way of us talking about our illnesses and how we manage each day!

I know it might sound funny me calling someone a Spoonie but when you understand the theory and what its really all about it doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Once again its about understanding and educating others to see the reality of what we live with every day. I know this doesn’t seem like very much of a post for today but someone emailed me asking what a Spoonie was! I also think that in order for me to explain the term, I need to refer it back to who created it all in the first place!