On Surviving

When it’s chronic and incurable you don’t ever get to let your guard down and say “I survived that”. It’s never completely behind you and you live in the active state of survivorship each and every day. You have great days, you have good days, you have less than good days. Your shield is constantly up as you are always aware of the status and whereabouts of your seemingly invisible foe in your efforts to continuously beat it into submission and remission. You stare the disease down like a fighter in the ring before the opening bell rings. Your guard is up but in such a way that you don’t let it own you or consume your daily existence. It’s the ultimate exercise in multitasking at the most primitive level. It needs to be a priority but it can’t be THE priority as life has a wonderful way of relentlessly throwing multiple priorities your way.

So you keep your eyes focused ahead of you. You stay the course. You do your very best to be where your feet are at all times. You eat your chocolate. You keep moving. And you never ever lose hope – for anything