Scattered Thoughts . . .

Whenever I go through periods of poor health, I struggle with finding ways to feel productive, useful and even nonburdensome to those around me. As any chronically ill patient will attest, far too often I'm feeling too lousy to accomplish enough to stave off feelings of inadequacy during these periods and it is incredibly difficult to find ways to feel productive. Physically, during these periods, you are fighting off pain and a complex and constantly changing myriad of debilitating symptoms. Mentally, you are fighting off being bored to the point of tears because whenever you are feeling lousy, you are sort of in a vacuum getting nothing accomplished. Emotionally, you are fighting feelings of inadequacy, being a burden and being unproductive... you struggle with not having a purpose... you even struggle with the grief of losing the healthy, strong and pain-free body you once had, the active life you once had, the career you once had... let's just say that struggling with gri

Sometimes, those who knew me when I was healthy still see me as the healthy person I once was in better times. That is great... we all would like to be remembered in good light but it is not “me” as I am today. What I feel is worse, however, is that I see myself vastly differently today than when I was healthy... I feel I am a very different person today... and, in many ways, I am a different person today... but I am sometimes reminded that, in some ways, I am indeed the same person I have always been... That gets me wondering if those who see me the same as I was when I was healthy fully understand my limitations and how these limitations have caused me to change... to evolve... simply in order to survive. If they don't understand these limitations, there is no way they can see the person I am today. Every now and then, this uncertainty inevitably gets us talking about who I was then compared to who I am today. I've been meaning to write about this topic for qu