SO HERE I GO....BLOGGING FOR INVISIBLE ILLNESS WEEK

Intro....

So...five years ago I have to admit I was so burned out from everyone telling me to check out their "blog" (sort of replaced the "check out my website!" business) and I could not resist buying a t-shirt that said "Nobody Cares About Your Blog." My husband loved that shirt.

I no longer have it.

To be honest, I have debated for quite some time whether to ever "blog". For one thing, these days, my dry eye syndrome and vision limits the time I can spend in front of computer and I prefer to save that time for when I need to use my Mac as an art tool in my studio. I also was not sure what, exactly, I would blog about. I always saw it being about art...or life...or maybe....my invisible illness. But I feared if I blogged about my health it would just not go over well. So many things are attached to that. Would it make it seem like I was feeling sorry for myself? Would it bore people? Would it be a negative thing to do? After all, I love Eckhart Tolle and how he mentions in his New Earth book about how we should not be going around "telling our story" to people as it really does not define us. Or that we should "let the doctors" worry about our health. Well...love ya Eckhart but this is one area I am gonna have to disagree with. Not that I do not get what he is saying but still...sometimes telling our stories can help others. I know this from personal experience. When I went through something horribly profound almost five years ago, one of the things that helped me the most was those who shared their stories, and support, on the web. I am grateful to them to this day. And let the doctors handle our illness? Wouldn't that be nice...and those of you with invisible illnesses know what I mean. But more about that later.

So although I plan to write about anything and everything when I can, I will start out with my invisible illness for invisible illness week this month of September 2011. I was asked by members of several web sites if I would do this to help raise awareness and I am happy to try it out. So here we go..

I'll make this first entry short. On this particular day, and how appropriate, I am experiencing the chills, fatigue and nausea I have become so used to in having an autoimmune disease. Not every day is like this...but every day...and I mean every day...I wake up and feel as if I have a bad cold or getting over the flu. I peel back my eye mask and get eye drops into my eyes as fast as I can to avoid the pain...and then I lay there. And I lay there. And even if I went to bed hot and feverish I wake freezing cold. It takes forever to emerge. And sometimes there is so much anxiety over facing a day I so badly want to go well and feel well that I am simply overwhelmed from the start. But it does not stop me. Because despite my daily challenges, I have a lot, and I mean a lot of love and support around me. It never easy, but it is what keeps me going even when all I want to do sometimes is go back to sleep where I can dream...because in my dreams I am never sick. When I dream, I am me again.