Living with chronic illness isn’t easy, but it’s not the end of the story either. In this heartfelt post, I share my personal journey through decades of health battles, the lessons I’ve learned about gratitude and resilience, and why I refuse to let my medical struggles define me. Life is too precious to waste on pity — I’m here to laugh, love, and live every day I’m given.
In my thirties, every time a bunch of couples got together, it seemed like clockwork: the men would break off into one group to swap stories about surviving boot camp or brag about how tough they were back in the day, while the women would gather in another corner trading war stories about the horrors of childbirth. It was almost like a dance we all knew the steps to
Fast forward a few decades, and here in my sixties, it’s a different story. Now when a group gathers, you can forget about childbirth or boot camp. It’s more like a contest to see who has the most surgeries, the worst diagnosis, or the biggest pile of prescription bottles. Everybody seems to have something, and they’re all eager to lay it out like playing cards.
Me? Oh, I could win the game hands down if I wanted to.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I live with a laundry list of health issues. Type 1 diabetes for decades (thank you, insulin), diabetic neuropathy, retinopathy, autonomic neuropathy, coronary artery disease, mini-strokes (TIAs), sleep apnea, insomnia, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, stage 3 kidney disease, liver disease, chronic urinary tract infections, and restless legs syndrome — just to name a few.
And that’s only part of it. I’ve also had quadruple heart bypass surgery, nearly died from rhabdomyolysis, fought off sepsis from kidney stones, survived two major shoulder replacements, and worked hard to recover from opioid dependency after being overprescribed for years. Oh, and I’m slowly losing my vision.
Sounds pretty grim when you lay it all out like that, doesn’t it?
But here’s the thing — I refuse to let all that garbage define who I am. I don’t wear my illnesses like a badge of honor. I don’t want pity. I don’t want to be remembered for my medical chart. I want to be remembered for my laughter, my stories, my stubbornness, my love, and my life.
Sure, I have my days — days where I complain (usually to my poor husband who has lived every minute of this life with me), days where I feel low, days when it’s hard to find the silver lining. But most of the time, I work damn hard to find reasons to laugh, reasons to feel lucky, reasons to be grateful.
And I do feel lucky. Lucky for my husband, my sons, my grandchildren. Lucky for the friends I have, the places I’ve been, the memories I’ve made. Every day above ground is a gift, and every morning I open my eyes and realize I’ve got another chance, I count it a win.
Honestly, I find it sad that some people actually want to be sick. Some crave the attention that illness brings. I saw it in my own family — my mother was a hypochondriac who spent her life chasing symptoms she didn’t even have. Others exaggerate their health problems just to get sympathy. That’s not living — that’s a desperate kind of emptiness I don’t ever want to fall into.
I know people who suffer far worse than I do. I know what true devastation looks like. And that’s why I count my blessings. I might move slower, hurt more, and see less than I used to — but my life is still full. Full of love, full of laughter, full of living.
If there’s anything my life has taught me, it’s this: don’t waste a minute. I lost five precious years of my life stuck in bed, over-medicated, robbed of my energy, my mind, and my spirit. I fought like hell to get my life back. And now I fight every day to keep it — by finding the good, by making memories, by laughing even when it hurts.
And if tomorrow never comes, I’ll go knowing this: I lived. I loved. I laughed. I didn’t just survive — I made the best out of the life I was given. And I’m pretty damn proud of that.
