eader

Thursday, September 13, 2012

You know you have a chronic illness when…

1) You understand all the terminology used in medical TV shows and instantly know when it is used incorrectly or out of context.

2) You can spell and use words like "promyelocytic," “fibromyalgia,” “dysautonomia,” "postural orthostatic tachycardia," "myofascial" and "thoracic outlet" in a sentence.

3) You've been to so many medical appointments that you have actually lost count of the number of doctors who have seen you just wearing a hospital gown.

4) At home you have a stack of your own medical records that could fill several file folder and then some.

5) You've stumped more than a few doctors with the complexity of your health problems and the abundance of your medical symptoms.

6) You discover a new empathy for Humpty Dumpty when you find out your doctors can't put you back together again either.

7) You have been dumped by, or needed to fire, one (or more) of your doctors.

8) You take so many prescription and over-the-counter medications, vitamins and supplements, you need a shoe box (or three) to store them and several different pill boxes to organize them.

9) Most of the contacts in your phone book are for your doctors and other healthcare providers, pharmacy and health insurance company; most of the apps and books on your tablet are health-related.

10) You've got a whole collection of medical devices and mobility aids and you aren't afraid to be seen using them in public.

11) You realize that on some days you are more like Little Miss Grumpy than Little Miss Sunshine.

12) You are frustrated with a lack of appropriate words to adequately describe your chronic illness and dread having to explain, once again, how a healthy person's "tired," "fatigue" and "pain" feel nothing like what you are experiencing.

13) You overhear your spouse or other family members explaining to others that you are chronically ill.

14) You stop dreading your pain-filled, sleepless nights and start looking forward to catching up with friends around the world on Twitter and Facebook during the wee hours of the morning.

15) You talk about the chronically ill friends you've connected with online like you talk about your friends in real life.

16) You rant about your bad days on Twitter, write about your life with chronic illness on your blog, collect images of cool, inspirational sayings on Pinterest and share what you know with others on Facebook.

17) You and your chronically ill pals speak in code, using words like: fibro-friendly, painsomnia, Spoonie, ChronicBabe, CA (chronically awesome) and AWAP (as well as possible).

18) You've gone way beyond TMI when talking about the symptoms of your chronic illnesses with your spouse, family, friends...and even strangers!

19) Your personal motto becomes: "If I push, I will pay.  If I pace, I can play!"

20) You've accepted there are things you can no longer do and decided to focus instead on finding the things in life that you can still enjoy.


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3 comments

Anonymous said...

A lot of those ring true, especially 14 & 15. Good to have a sense of humour with this.

A good post for invisible illness week

Annette

http://yourgoldwatch.blogspot.ca/

Migrainista said...

Love it!

Ms. R said...

Spot on and really well said!