Invisible Illness Awareness Week

I just found out that this week is Invisible Illness Awareness Week. An invisible illness is typically defined as an illness that you can't see from the outside. But it can also be defined as an illness that doctors have a hard time diagnosing and treating. In my case, I fall into both of these definitions. Just looking at me you would never know that a whole lot of my insides don't work the way that they were designed to. It took over 6 months (which really isn't that long) to diagnose my gastroparesis and another 16 months to figure out how to treat it. POTS is a little bit different. Once my brother was diagnosed we kind of put two and two together by ourselves but we didn't have another doctors appointment for 8 months or so. I was quickly diagnosed there and everything was set into motion pretty quickly.
Today I want to talk about why I fight to get up every morning. I fight for myself. I fight for my life because if I don't who will? (yes, I know a lot of my family and friends would but that is not the point here) Who would want to fight for someone who doesn't believe in and fight for themselves? I know that my life will never be normal. But who really wants to be normal anyways? I do fight for the life I have imagined, for example going to college and graduating from college. Don't get me wrong, the life I imagined is very different from how my life is going but that is completely okay. I am rolling with the punches that life throws my way. That is all I can do. We never know what is going to happen to us tomorrow or even in the next hour. That is why we have to live every moment to the best of our abilities. And I try to do that every single day.
This week is about awareness. Please share this post with someone in your life whether they have an invisible illness or not. I am always here to talk if anyone wants to know my story or if someone was recently diagnosed and just needs someone to talk things through with. There is a quote that speaks volumes about invisible illnesses although I'm sure it wasn't coined to be. I know I am going to mess it up but it is along the lines of "Be kind to everyone because you never know what someone else is going through."

Until next time,
    A :)