Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
Sleeping in was a sin in my father’s eyes. Even as a teenager, no matter how late we’d been out the night before, if we weren’t up with the sun, Dad would treat us to an icy face wash. The early bird catches the worm! Laziness was not tolerated either. If we were ever caught […]
Read MoreI’m in love with my doctor. I realized it this afternoon, when having just returned from a quarterly visit; I opened my email to find three messages from his office, all with attachments outlining the new course of treatment he has assigned me. It’s not that I didn’t know the emails were coming – handouts […]
Read MoreCurrent setbacks have been self-imposed, it appears. I went to a physiotherapist this week to see if I could get some help for my legs. “Best way I can describe it,” I told him, “is that my legs feel like the plastic ones on those cheap patio chairs. I can’t trust that they won’t give […]
Read MoreOriginally posted on One Woman's Quest:
? I fear illness. I grew up in a household where dis-ease was the norm. My mother had her first dance with death as a child, then suffered a broken back in her late thirties, followed by three bouts of cancer. In her elder years, she lives with…
Even when illness is chronic there is a tendency to look for signs and hope of healing. It catches me every time : the false hope that I may have turned a corner. Undeniably, there is progress. Last night I was able to bathe alone without worry of falling or passing out. Last year, I […]
Read MoreI get that this illness thing may be part of higher learning; a divinely inspired gift to awaken my soul, but really? My resume is already humongous – I am over-animated with life experiences. Okay, okay, so we are co-creators, make life choices, must be engaged in the process, but what kind of school is […]
Read MoreME/CFS is a mean mistress, whose sole purpose is to keep me down. She is a dominatrix thriving on my submission, wielding her whip with heartlessness, and when she tires of the lashes – has me wincing in pain – she tosses the whip in my direction, tauntingly daring me to defend myself, knowing full well that […]
Read More“How are you?” my friend asked me the other morning – an innocuous enough question, if the recipient is not suffering from chronic illness. Apart from the odd text here and there, I hadn’t talked to this friend for months, so I answered a pat: “Better.” I had really called her because I knew she […]
Read More“Pay attention to your inner child,” my therapist advised me when I first got sick. It seems that fear causes emotional regression and any needs suppressed over the years come barreling forward in irrational outbursts. Hard to deny that one from where I’m sitting. I’ve been dreaming about children lately – children in my care – […]
Read MoreEarly on in our relationship, Ric and I signed up for ballroom dancing classes. It was a small class for beginners, so we thought it might be a good fit; both of us loved to dance. “I’m not very good at letting someone else take the lead,” I confessed on the first night. “In dancing, […]
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One Woman's Quest II 