Hi everyone! I know its been a while since my last post and so I figured I better get something up. That’s if any of you are still reading this blog! Today is really just an update on what has been going on. In Sept things were busy with a couple of speaking engagements and a week-long trip to Ottawa involving advocacy work. While in Ottawa for that work an opportunity arose to speak with representatives from both the Liberal and Conservative Governments in regards to Bill C-81 the Accessible Canada Act. This was a real privilege to take part in and I had to ask a lot extra of myself in order to do it.
In October I started experiencing a really bad spike in pain which ended up with me making a visit to the hospital. I have managed to get the pain under control however am still dealing with some unanswered questions. Pushing forward and not wanting this setback to derail me, in mid Oct I was asked to speak at a conference in Montreal. I was given the opportunity to share my story with researchers from the Society for Medical Decision Making. Another opportunity that you don’t get every day, and one in which I got to share on behalf of the patient/advocate with researchers from across North America.
After sharing my story a researcher attending the conference pulled me aside. She told me that the highlight to her week was listening to my story, and that it opened her eyes to just how much rare disease affects an individual and their family. Then she thanked me for helping her to see things from a different perspective, and that this would change the way that she would do her research moving forward. At moments like these it doesn’t matter how many individuals are at the conference! Being able to impact just one person in the way that I did make it all worthwhile.
Arriving home from Montreal and with commitments out of the way I could now spend more time on self-care. A good thing because dealing with my health right now has to be my focus. At the moment I am undergoing different tests to figure out why my pain is spiking so much as of late. It all gets to be so much at times but you do your best to pull out anything positive you can. You will see in one of my next posts, that a great deal of positive can result from a these trials we face.
I’ve moved past the point of allowing anger, fear, or any of the negative that tries to creep in. In the thirteen years since diagnosis when it comes to research, treatments, or even cures there’s been very little changed with CRPS. Yet this tends to be where people fighting this disease get stuck and spin their wheels. People diagnosed get paralyzed in fear and start to feel helpless because of the uncertainty of so many different things.This is an area in my life where God has really broken down walls and not only fills me with hope but also helped me to keep moving forward with my life.
I’m not willing to let life pass me by! CRPS can throw everything it has at me but every time I’ll get up and fight stronger and harder never giving up. I guess in a lot of ways you can compare crps to the likes of learning how to ride a bike for the very first time. At times you are going to fall off, and so you dust yourself off and get right back on the bike.The hard part is in telling yourself to get back on. For me personally God is the one who lifts me back up every time I fall off, encouraging me to keep going and move forward with my life.
Like I said before there really is no message in today’s post. Although if you read between the lines maybe there is one I don’t know. What I will say is this. We know that as each of us walks through our own personal journey’s, that we might come up against some really tough situations. Right! It’s in my own personal opinion that we need to see them as opportunities to learn and grow from them. Even if that means not understanding the why’s of a given situation! God has really helped me to strengthen this area of my life. Empowering me to use those obstacles or tough times that I go through in a number of positive ways.
Not everything about this diagnosis has to be a bad thing. The person I have become as a result of being sick would require me to write an entire chapter of a book in order to explain. Yes chronic illness has radically changed my life along with the rest of my family. What I am choosing to see however are all the ways in which it has had a positive impact on my life!