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Living with the limits caused by chronic illness
Chronic illness limits what you can do, often dramatically. In this post I share how I have learned to look at limits in a different way.
Limits are all around us. Our limitations are physical, economic, mental, intellectual and medical. This list could be expanded, but I think you will agree, there are constraints placed all around us. Most of these are real, and some are imagined. Those that we create in our heads are the strongest and overcoming their bonds needs unique skills.
It is interesting that we always tend to focus on these boundaries in our lives. These walls that curtail us. Our heads only see the bricks, the mortar and an impediment to our progress. In my experience these include loss of mobility, lost sensation, inability to concentrate for more than 30 minutes and the ever-present fatigue, sapping the strength from my limbs. My chronic pain and multiple sclerosis had blocked the road that I saw in front of me.
Surely I must now be in despair. This mental state is not the case. The limits still exist, and I do not deny the role they have in my life. I am bounded. Looking around at these walls I then choose to look up and see an endless sky, full of unknown adventures and promise.
