Changes are in the works! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been looking at how I can make some changes to this blog for the better! Don’t worry! If you read my blog on a regular basis the guts of the blog will be almost the same but I will be changing the layout and adding some other things to the site. There are a few reasons I want to make some changes but I also want to update its look. I know I’ve been saying that I’d do this for a while now but it just hasn’t been high on the to do list!

If you have any suggestions of what you would like to see on my site then please drop me a line at ross@painfullyoptomistic.com and maybe I will consider it. I just really feel that change has to happen and that if I’m going to do my job as an advocate for CRPS and chronic pain then I have to change a few things around. In doing so it benefits you the reader. Not only will it keep you informed about this journey I am on but I will try to provide you with resources and other information as well.

Over the last year I have been surrounding myself with others with chronic illness who are firmly entrenched in advocacy and have an abundance of information at their fingertips. I’ve been sitting back wanting to make changes with my site but just didn’t know what those changes were going to look like. When people come to this blog I don’t want it to read like a medical journal. If a person is newly diagnosed I want them to not only relate to my illness and know that they are not alone, but know they can come to this site for information as well!

If you follow my blog because you want to follow my journey then your in luck because that will always be included in this site. Its why I started this site and will always be the building block of this site. I’m just looking at ways that I can freshen things up and widen the range of people that my site reaches. Its hard to believe that its been ten years since diagnosis and six years that I’ve been writing this blog. Over that time there have been over 400 posts put up expressing every emotion under the sun. It’s gone through all the different chapters that I’ve been through on this journey with CRPS!

Its been a long journey to this point and I feel as though a new chapter is starting. When I look back at those first posts I see a person who was scared and unsure of what lay down the road. Today even though I still fight intense pain and battle this disease, I’m filled with confidence and know that God has a plan and purpose in all this for my life. I feel as though that next chapter is starting and even though I’m still not sure about the contents that will make up that chapter I’m starting to move ahead anyway. I’m just standing in belief that God is going to show me what that content is going to be.

What I do know is that there has been this shift within me and I want that to start coming out more in my writing. It doesn’t mean that I won’t be real with what I write and tell you about how I’m struggling or feeling on any given day but it does mean that I want to shift how I write a bit as well. I’m still trying to figure all of this out and so please have a little bit of patience if every so often my posts seem a bit scattered. I guess what I really want to say is that if I want this blog to accurately reflect the journey that I’m on and that again requires some change.

When I started this blog back in 2010 my goal and focus at that time was really to just get my emotions out. It was a way for me to express how I was feeling at the time and was a creative outlet to help me. Today it has become so much more than that! Its become a way to share my story and hopefully help others navigate through their storms. Most of all though I want people to see that in ten years of dealing with this illness one person has been responsible for getting me through it. God!