I am not a well child, my mother once told me. I am not like
other children. Sometimes I will not be able to do things that other children
do. From a young age I have known, and come to accept this fact. Of the
resentment I once held for every doctor I have seen, I now hold equal gratitude. It
is not their fault that I am like this. They aren’t here to make me feel
eternally unwell or hopeless. I once found it hard to believe, but they are
here to help me.
I have often felt alone, completely isolated from everybody
else. Whether it is my panic attacks or my hypoglycaemia, my sleep apnoea or
the cysts that inhabit my brain, I will never be just like everybody else. I
have spent enough time crying in my bedroom about this to know that I can’t
control what happens inside my body, I can only control how I deal with it. No
amount of tears will take away my risk of fainting or going unconscious. Hiding
away will not take away my risk of going blind or becoming infertile. I cannot
change these things. I can spend all my time worrying about the fact that my
aorta is weaker than the average and my lung capacity is reduced, or I can live
my life, aware but unaffected by the fact that my health hangs in the balance.
I’ve seen too many doctors to be able to name every
kind. My mother likes to joke that I’m under every specialist in the hospital,
which admittedly has some truth to it.
At times I get angry and sad about my health and the endless doctors
appointments, but I can thank the lovely doctors and nurses for they way they
spoke louder than the voice in my head telling me to just give up on my health. They were
the reassurance that I needed to keep going and they helped me get my health
back on track when it had gone off the rails and seemed to be headed for a
cliff.
I know things could be worse. I could be terminally ill. I
could be bedridden. What I have to remind myself is that I am
not terminally ill. I am not bedridden. I have the freedom to live my life, and
I refuse to let my health run my life the way it has been for the past 5 years.
I am stronger than a diagnosis and I will fight my hardest through every obstacle
in my path. This is the promise that I make to myself; that I will be strong; I will not give up, no matter what happens.
I know that many more difficulties lie ahead of me, but I will not let that
stand in the way of all of the wonderful things that life has to offer.
Nobody ever said that life would be easy. Nobody ever said that life would be fair. But regardless, life is worth living.
That's all from me,
Dancer Free xx
