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The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.Joseph Conrad
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I had learned quickly that life doesn't always go the way I want it to, and that's okay. I still plod on.Sarah Todd Hammer
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People who don't see you every day have a hard time understanding how on some days--good days--you can run three miles, but can barely walk across the parking lot on other days, ' [my mom] said quietly.Jennifer Starzec
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I often wished that more people understood the invisible side of things. Even the people who seemed to understand, didn't really.Jennifer Starzec
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The video was still playing, although I didn't know why. It seemed as if the able-bodied dancers were mocking me.Sarah Todd Hammer
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The thought of being able to [move my arms] made me want to give up my legs [instead] since I was accustomed to using them. But, I figured that after a few hours of sitting in a wheelchair... I would switch back...in a flash.Sarah Todd Hammer
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The weekend was a much-needed breath of fresh air; Monday always seemed to not only take that breath right back, but add a few extra pounds to my shoulders as well.Jennifer Starzec
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Dancing with a spinal cord injury is a challenge like no other, but I aspired to prove to myself that I could still be phenomenal dancer even with an SCISarah Todd Hammer
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She has fought many wars, most internal. The ones that you battle alone, for this, she is remarkable. She is a survivor.Nikki Rowe
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Mental illness People assume you aren’t sick unless they see the sickness on your skin like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting. My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s Have you tried exercising? Have you tried eating better? Have you tried not being sad, not being sick? Have you tried being more like me? Have you tried shutting up? Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying, and yes, I am still sick. Sometimes monsters are invisible, and sometimes demons attack you from the inside. Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth does not mean they aren’t ripping through me. Pain does not need to be seen to be felt. Telling me there is no problem won’t solve the problem. This is not how miracles are born. This is not how sickness works.Emm Roy
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Chronic illness is hard. Pain is hard. Isolation is hard. The financial cost is hard. Grieving is hard and necessary and sometimes takes far longer than we every imagined.Cindee Snider Re
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Recently God asked me the same question in a new way, "And if I don't allow you to heal, if I never remove the pain, will you still trust Me?Cindee Snider Re
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I certainly don’t buy into the idea that positive attitudes can somehow mysteriously directly influence physical health outcomes.James C. Coyne
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It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of. . it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.[ Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview].Hilary Mantel
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Physically, mentally, emotionally -- it seems like every part of me is broken in one way or another.Patrick Carman
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Depression affects almost 80% of migraine sufferers at one time or another. People with migraine, especially chronic migraine, also are more likely to experience intense anxiety and to have suicidal tendencies. If we want to live happy and joyful lives with migraine, it is vital that we acknowledge and deal with the emotional realities of the disease.Sarah Hackley
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My love has saved me. It wraps strong arms around me when I cry with despair;it gives me the routine of a working week to lend vicarious structure to my shapeless days. It brings me daily laughter, a reason to keep washing...and it slices me open with guilt.Anna Lyndsey
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By staying, by shirking the responsibility and effort of leaving, by continuing to occupy this lovely man while giving him neither children nor a public companion nor a welcoming home-do I do wrong?Anna Lyndsey
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And all my ethical reasoning crumbles to ash in the sheer fact of his presence. Because together, even in darkness, we light up a room; because the clotted guilt inside me breaks up and disperses before a surge of stupid happiness; because I love him, and I know I cannot leave him, am incapable of leaving him, unless he asks me to go. And he has not asked me. And that is the miracle which I live with, every day. .Anna Lyndsey
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Ache my bones, flame my muscles, tingle my nerves, but you will never taint my beautiful mind & I will overcome this condition with the belief that I already have. - CRPS AWARENESS -Nikki Rowe
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If I only could explain How much I miss that precious moment when I was free from the shackles of chronic pain.Jenni Johanna Toivonen
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I am disabled but I'm not my disability. Disability is just a little piece of me but it is not my whole personalityJenni Johanna Toivonen
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What if...the doctors couldn't find anything wrong? What if I was over-exaggerating the pain, weakness, and weird sensations?Jennifer Starzec
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All parents set out with expectations, hopes and dreams for their child. When a child is diagnosed with a health problem, these aspirations are altered. While one parent is hoping to see their child graduate from university, another is praying that they can live pain freeSharon Dempsey
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Armed with my positive attitude and inherent stubborn nature, I keep my mind focused and my life moving forward. I stop to rest, pout and even cry sometimes, but always, I get back up. Life is giving me this challenge and I will plow through it, out of breath with my heart racing if I have to.Amy B. Scher
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My handbag turned into a diaper bag for the chronically ill.Tracey Berkowitz
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It never occurred to me that somehow women did know about it. It just never occurred to me. Yes I am wearing sneakers too. You are in a suit, I am comfortable. So when she explained to me that this was the first event really of its kind, it floored me. So I called my daughter who is in her 30s now and I said “do you know what endometriosis is?” She said, “what? Have to pack the pack the busters.” I said “no man, you have never heard of it?” No she said. I do not know what it is, and it occurred to me that my 30-year-old daughter who I told about endometriosis and it didn’t stick. If she didn’t know, and she is one of the hippest people I know, and her daughter doesn’t know, she has 19-year-old and she is a 13-year-old. The boy, we don’t care much about if he knows about it so much. There is other stuff for him to learn. Like how to roll a condom, things like that. You know, and it occurred to me that if they didn’t know that there were hundreds of thousands girls out there that don’t know. It is not because their mothers don’t want to tell them, because it’s not religion, it’s pure ignorance. We don’t know, we don’t have the information, we have it now, and so now is why this very first gathering is happening. Now is why we’re all sitting here looking really fabulous as you are..[ Whoopi Goldberg on endometriosis awareness from the 2009 Blossom Ball] .Whoopi Goldberg
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You spend a lot of time thinking about how awful the prison is rather than envisioning your future.Piper Kernan
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This was the first piece to the whole story–the beginning.Sarah Todd Hammer
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We can feel isolated and powerless when living with chronic illness, but what if your story begins to bridge the barrier or open a way for someone to connect? What if your story offers a glimmer of hope to someone standing at the edge of desolation?. ..What if your story starts the conversation?Cindee Snider Re
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I'm tired of having to struggle for what seems to come easily to everyone else.Mercedes Lackey
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Many empaths are diagnosed with chronic illnesses such as fibromyalgia, CFS, lupus, and various autoimmune diseases, as well as psychological disorders such as agoraphobia, social anxiety, ADHD, depression, sensory processing disorder, among many others.Aletheia Luna
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No one knows our bodies or our subjective experiences like we do. This means we can rest secure in our knowledge of ourselves and what we’re going through, even when the medical profession doesn’t understand or believe us. Migraine is a weird and changing disease. It affects all of us differently, and every attack is a little different than the one before. This means that no one can understand your life, symptoms, or illness like you can. This can be incredibly empowering: you are the expert. But, it also carries great responsibility: to live as happily and as fully as possible, you must listen to your body and trust your instincts. .Sarah Hackley
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Behind every stressful thought is the desire for things to be other than they are.Toni Bernhard
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Remember this: You are the expert of your body.Sarah Hackley
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By taking the time to focus on our mental and emotional well-being, we can minimize our triggers and reduce the likelihood of a recurrence.Sarah Hackley
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No matter what stage of illness we are in, whether we’ve just been diagnosed or we have lived with chronic migraines for decades, there are adjustments we can make to increase joy in our lives and to live more fully.Sarah Hackley