I found myself up this morning about an hour early, the only thing I could find that could have caused me to wake was a pain that I normally find I can ignore, more than ache but not deadly. I know your lungs don’t fill the whole cavity within your rib cage, but this was in the lower quarter on my left side. Everything always seems to centre on the left side of my body, I have always found it odd that illnesses affect one side more than another, yes I do know that each half of the brain controls one side of your body, but that doesn’t explain why my left lung is worse than my right, or why I have more pain in my gut on the left side. In fact just thinking about that I have realised that the only bones I have ever broken are both on the left side as well, it is just a little odd. When I first woke I didn’t think it was bad enough to have woken me but it hasn’t changed at all, so the build up of it might have just done it. I wanted to go back to sleep but I couldn’t, so I got up and fixed the bed so that Adam could head through and be able to lie down without having to move pillows and so on, two hours later and he is still sitting on the settee. When I came through here he instantly woke and started asking if I was OK, he does that a lot, but he went into one of his ask and ask again, then apologising for asking, eventually he explained, he is worried because I am now out of routine and he knows all to well what that does to me. How could anyone not love someone who cares so deeply. I know a lot of people who have lost their partners due to their health and quite naturally I did fear that as much as my illness at first, but in time I accepted that he was going no where and more than that, he still loved me as much and he was with me for the long haul, PRMS or not. Because of who I am, I know without a doubt that I would have managed the early stages on my own with out too many issues, but now, well there is no way I could be living at home without him, not just for the practical things, but for the true support that he gives me daily. I have to say I really admire those who are dealing with anything like this totally on their own, as even the strongest amongst us need love and support.
Once your life has been taken over and you are living with a body that is totally out of your control, every day life is really tough. Quite honestly it doesn’t matter how positive you are, pain is still pain and suddenly finding yourself on the floor, as useless as a newborn, doesn’t become any easier to accept. I know that others see me as this incredibly positive person who can make others feel better about what is happening to them, but I can only do so because I have learned how to change everything around and find either something to laugh at, or a glimmer of hope somewhere with in it. Part of that is because of the life I have lived, I learned at a very early age so survive I had to deal quickly with what ever had happened and make it into something that wasn’t going to totally destroy me. Some of the traumas I lived through could have so easily shaped a very different person, I can’t explain what it is inside of me that is different, or how I learned to be a survivor who didn’t feel like a victim, the beginnings of that is so far back that I honestly can’t remember. All I know is I quite honestly have never known how to hate, as it was something that didn’t and doesn’t make sense to me, so I just don’t do it. I also for some reason learned not to apportion spiteful blame on anyone, yes I could say that was my or their fault, but I didn’t hate them for it, I just got angry about it for a while. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually let go of even that and I learned to forgive, to remove that blame from all of them, including myself, life is a series of events, events I just live through and once far enough away from them, I then try to find something positive in them all. The other part, well that’s you, you and everyone else around the world who reads what I write here and on twitter. There is an amazing boost in seeing the numbers rise daily as people read, in reading the comments and tweet which arrive in reply to mine, each and everyone of you lifts me and helps me get through my day.
It was actually Adam that started me think about what I have just written, we were as normal watching TV and I can’t remember what brought the subject up, but it was Adam who pointed out to me that I always find that positive in everything, that I have a knack of moving through life without any of getting me down and I never seem to expect the worst of anyone or anything. Despite him, or the thousands of tweets I get telling me I am this amazing positive person, I just couldn’t see it or agree with them. Even now after I have analysed it and proved to myself that yes I really am a glass half full person, I still can’t see what is so special about that, surely half the world is glass half full. The good, the funny, the happy is always there, we just have to look and when it comes to surviving something like PRMS, well I would say it is an essential skill that if you don’t have it, you should be at the very least trying to learn it, as it makes life so much better.
So right now I am sat here still in pain as I always am, with a history that is here for anyone to read, yet there is still a smile on my face. Happiness isn’t about the past, it isn’t even about the now, it’s about what is inside of us, that feeling that tells us life goes on and it’s not the end until it arrives. Happiness is about the good things, the fact we’re still alive and there is still life to live, as life isn’t all the horrid things that are happening, pain doesn’t last, it doesn’t have the power to destroy us, as long as we are happy. Happiness is the rest of it, the people we love and who love us, the things that make us laugh and smile and I for one, want just that bit more of it.
Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 13/12/12 – Feeling rotten and tired. LOL!
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 