My Chronic Illness and My Only Child

Note: October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. This post discusses an early pregnancy loss.

I’ve been reflecting in some very personal pieces on my early parenting experience, including my pregnancy and my daughter’s infanct. Along this parenting journey, I’ve learned some things I didn’t expect: like that I wish I would have gotten an epidural sooner while in labor, and that I would have used formula from the start instead of my painful and ultimately failed breastfeeding events. These lessons are somewhat controversial, but I wholeheartedly believe that in parenting, every journey is different, and parents need to make the decisions that are right for their own particular situations.

I would say that I would implement these lessons when I have a second child, but another of those big, “controversial” decisions we’ve made through this parenting journey is that S, who is 4.5, will be our only child (unless life majority intervenes).

Pre-pregnancy, I had always pictured my husband and I with two children. I have one sister, and so does my husband. We both love our sisters dearly and are blessed to have them. So having two children ourselves just seemed like the obvious thing to do. But then my pregnancy happened, and we decided early on we weren’t going through that again. S was a wonderful baby, and I was content with her being our only for about 90% of the time, but longing for a second child feelings still happened until fairly recently (in me: my husband remained confident in our choice to have one child).

There was almost a reality in which we had two children. I had a copper IUD put in shortly after I gave birth. I was doing ok on it, other than some cyst issues. I have a history of doing very badly on most forms of birth control (I thankfully now have found one that works very well for me), and the copper IUD was doing better than other forms had in the past. But one day two summers ago, I started experiencing some intense pain and cramping when my period was about a week late (but they tended to be sporadic at that point anyway, so I didn’t think about it). At first, I thought the pain was period cramps, but it got a lot worse. Then, I thought the pain was a burst ovarian cyst, which I’ve had many times in the past, but then the bleeding started.

I started heavy bleeding, way more than my normal period, along with several large clots. One of these clots, the largest, forced out my IUD, which caused me to go to the ER. I was concerned that the IUD could have done damage when it came out: I didn’t even think miscarriage until I read “spontaneous abortion” on the discharge paperwork (I didn’t really understand it all when they explained it; I was too out of it). I recognized the wording from the time I almost lost S during my first pregnancy.

I don’t talk much about my loss: in fact, it took over a year to acknowledge it out loud, even to my husband. I guess amongst all my chronic illnesses and everything else that was going on that summer (which is the sickest I’ve ever been for an extended period of time), I knew I couldn’t handle it, so I emotionally compartmentalized it.

I’ve acknowledged my loss, quietly, for about six months now. There wasn’t a big cataclysmic event that got me to talk: I just wasn’t ready before, and then I was, first with my husband, then with a few other close family and friends. I’m finally to a point where I’m more open about my loss, though this is the first time I’m writing about it publicly.

I am sad when I think about my loss, and probably always will be. I mourn not only the loss of that particular child, but the loss of a potential future in which I had two children. I get especially wistful when I see S playing with a baby or a younger child: she would be such a good big sister.

Even though I grieve the lost potential of that two-child future, dealing with and reflecting on my pregnancy loss has cemented our decision to only have one child.

I have a lot to be incredibly thankful for. Despite my illnesses, I am able to work in a career field I love. We have a healthy, thriving little girl and a happy, mutually supportive marriage. We have reached a point where we are establishing a good rhythm on our lives, a rhythm in which my health conditions are fairly well-managed (even though new ones seem to keep coming up.) We are in a place where we are beginning to be better able to reach personal and professional goals.

As I wrote previously, my pregnancy with S was extremely painful and difficult. At that time I was only working part-time at the most, attending grad school one day a week, and had no child to care for. Now, both my husband and I are working full-time, and I spend most of my off-work time caring for a very active almost-five-year-old.

After my pregnancy with S, my health continued to decline rapidly, and I continue to get diagnosed with new illnesses (postural tachycardia this summer; psoriasis yesterday). I fear what would happen if I tried to carry a child–requiring going off many of the medicines that are helping me to thrive. My doctors worry as well, with my combined history of early labor and my particular health concerns. I could potentially have a relatively healthy pregnancy; it is more likely I would have a dangerous one. And now that I have S to care for, that kind of pregnancy really isn’t a risk I feel comfortable taking.

Even if I and a potential second child did alright through pregnancy, I would then have the newborn period to contend with, and my newborn period with S was very difficult. However, since she was my only child, I was able to focus almost exclusively on her. If I were to have a second child, I would have S vying for my attention as well, and a full time job to get back to.

Additionally, being chronically ill is very expensive. There’s copays for appointments, prescriptions, expensive tests like MRIs, specialists, and a lot more; personal medical equipment like my wheelchair and supportive braces; special diets; and plenty more. Children are also obviously very expensive, and a second would be a definite strain on our budget

All of these challenges could potentially be overcome if we didn’t feel like our family was complete with one child. But we do. Life with S is very full and beautiful. I know that if I did not have a child at all, I would long for one, but I do not have that same longing for a second child. I am now 100% confident in our one child choice.

I still have pangs sometimes, like when I see a 2nd child announcement, but they are more sadness that my life has taken this trajectory because of my illness, than actually wanting a 2nd child. I know that everyone has specific life circumstances, and ours make having one child the right choice.

Having one child can be oddly controversial. Many people with only one child get told that they are doing something wrong and that their child needs a sibling. But S is growing up very happy. She is social, shares, and makes friends easily. She will be raised around a large extended family and many other children. Having one child isn’t the right decision for every family, but it is the right choice for ours.

Raising a Newborn Amidst Multiple Undiagnosed Chronic Illnesses

Disclaimer: this post ended up focusing on my (failed) breastfeeding journey more than anything else. If you avoid feeding posts, avoid this one. Also, I have absolutely nothing against breastfeeding and I hope readers who love it and have a successful time breastfeeding their babies know this is not at all a slight on them. I just am sharing my own story: which is intrinsically linked to my chronic illnesses and the whole-body and intense nerve pain it causes.

My last blog post was a look back on my pregnancy with multiple undiagnosed chronic illnesses. Looking back and reflecting proved to be a powerful thing for me. I’ve never written about it before, and am surprised how much I remember.

The next piece of my past I’m reflecting on, both for my benefit and for awareness for the chronically ill parenting community, is the period right after my daughter S (now 4.5) was born. This part is blurrier than my pregnancy, so I’ll do my best to recount what I can.

I am not a baby person. I’m not even sure I’ve held a baby since S was that little. Now, I love kids, have a Masters with a specialization in youth and young adult development, and have worked professionally with kids for nearly a decade in many different settings, from a preschool teacher to a before and after school professional. Working with three year olds, elementary schoolers, and middle schoolers are my niches. Babies, on the other hand? Not my strong suit.

I heard a lot before S was born that it’s different when it’s your own kid, and that definitely proved to be true. I loved S immediately, and I took to being her mom fairly easily. But that didn’t change that the newborn period was the hardest stage of her life so far, and I’m thankful not to go back to it.

The number one thing that made the newborn period hard for me was breastfeeding (that and my undiagnosed chronic illnesses: which themselves were the number one thing that made breastfeeding hard).

When I think back to the four-ish months in which I breastfed, the number one thing I remember is pain.

The pain started shortly after I came home from the hospital, my milk came in, and I was severely engorged. The pain was literally as bad as the active labor I’d just experienced a few days earlier (pain tends to be the common thread in most of my life experience). I remember crying in pain while stuffing cabbage leaves in my pain, and sobbing in the shower as I ran water on them, desperate for anything that would ease the pain.

That pain stopped after a few days, but it was just the beginning of a very painful breastfeeding journey. Everytime she fed, I hurt. Her latch was confirmed correct by multiple lactation specialists, but it didn’t matter. Pain seared through me from the second she latched, throuth the entire time she fed, and afterwards. It hurt even worse when I pumped. Any contact hurt.

The breast pump, which I was using correctly, hurt so much that I switched to a manual on the two days a week I went to my graduate school classes. This really hurt my supply. I went from building a pretty decent supply, through tear-inducing sessions with the electric pump, to feeding her every single drop and still not having enough.

My school didn’t have a designated pumping space, and I didn’t know nearly enough to know that I could ask for one, so I pumped in a single stall bathroom in the basement, because it was the only bathroom where I could have total quiet.

Clusterfeeding days were the absolute worst. She would want to eat nearly all day, so I had no break from the pain. I’d be alone while my husband was in class all day, and I used up my freezer supply, so I couldn’t switch to a bottle. I would just sit there, sobbing in pain as she ate.

The pain I experienced definitely affected both my early relationship with my daughter and my mental health and self-esteem. I felt so inadequate for struggling so much to provide for one of her most basic needs. I felt broken for being in so much pain while feeding. I had heard that breastfeeding shouldn’t hurt so many times. Once again, just like in pregnancy, I felt like my body was failing me.

I would later learn the pain was caused by my general pain conditions: Generalized Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder and secondary fibromyalgia. My body wasn’t failing me; it just doesn’t produce normal, healthy collagen. My defective collagen and overactive nerves cause a lot of pain, and breastfeeding triggered it.

One weekend we were visiting family. S was about two months old. She was crying because she was hungry. My supply had dropped and I couldn’t provide enough to satiate her. I was crying because of feelings of inadequacy and the physical pain. That was the night I started supplementing with formula. It was a total game changer. I felt more connected to my daughter, and had much better self-esteem.

When S was about 4 months old, I ended up in the emergency room with several very painful burst ovarian cysts. I was told there that the medication they gave me made it unsafe to breastfeed. This turned out to not be true, but I had already stopped for several days by the time I found that out. I probably could have restarted, but a wave of relief had already washed over me. The newborn period dramatically improved, for both of us, when we started full-time bottle feeding. I have had many difficult times in parenting since then, and I’m sure I will have plenty more, but I look back on that time and am thankful for the decisions I made, and happy for the wonderful 4.5 year old I have today: and relieved that the baby days are very much behind us.

My Pregnancy with Undiagnosed Chronic Illnesses

My daughter will be 5 in January, so it has been quite a while since I was pregnant. Still, even with this much time removed from the experience, reflecting on it is admittedly difficult. I might be missing a fact here or there, but remember I am just trying my best to recall hard moments from the past that I mostly blocked out. I wouldn’t even be attempting to share them, except for I feel passionate about being a voice for the chronically ill community, especially chronically ill mothers. My pregnancy story is an essential first part of my chronically ill parenting journey.

Pregnancy was a very hard time for me physically. I was not yet diagnosed with Chiari Malformation, Generalized Hypermobility Syndrome, or Postural Tachycardia. So I thought I would have a normal, healthy pregnancy. My mom LOVED being pregnant, with both me and my younger sister.

I decided to take a pregnancy test because I was SO SICK. I vomited basically straight for an entire week, which is super fun when you’re trying to move into your 1st apartment with your brand new husband.

We went to the store for some groceries after first moving in. After beelining for the store bathroom to vomit once again (so glamorous; I am way too familiar with too many toilets in too many different bathrooms), I decided to buy a pregnancy test, just to be safe. Both my husband and I were sure it would be negative.

Welp.

I took one. It immediately turned positive. Took the other. Same result. My eggo was preggo (Juno reference).

We took it in stride, and were excited to be new parents, despite it being a surprise. We announced to our families, who were super excited too (first grandbaby/niece or nephew!). We decided on a girl name (that we had actually decided on when we were just dating) and, after much deliberation, a boy name (which was much harder). We started buying tiny, gender neutral clothes (I got a job at a children’s consignment store during that time, very part time between grad school classes, so it was all very tempting!).

But despite all that joy, I continued to be so, so sick: my entire pregnancy.

The throwing up was initially the worst. I threw up from “morning sickness” multiple times everyday through about 30 weeks, when the morning sickness seemed to subside but was replaced by awful acid reflux that still caused me to throw up multiple times a day. I didn’t get a break until a bit after I’d given birth.

Around 13 weeks, I had extreme cramping and bright red blood. I rushed to the Emergency Room, and after being observed for several hours and having an ultrasound, they determined it was a “threatened abortion”: scary words! Basically, it could have been a near-miss with losing the baby, though they couldn’t be sure. They put me on modified bedrest for several weeks until my OB cleared me.

I ended up in the hospital again with awful back pain and contractions. This time I was admitted. They monitored me, ran more tests, and gave me my first series of shots to stop early labor. This was the first of 3 times I would end up in the hospital for suspected early labor and have to receive those shots.

I was put on modified bedrest again all through winter break, so basically the entire month of December and almost two weeks into January, until I reached 37 weeks. I remember laying on my apartment floor a lot on a sleeping bag, groaning in agony as prodromal labor contractions rippled through.

At 37 weeks, I was finally allowed to move around some: difficult to do when I was in the amount of pain I was in. But ultrasounds and tests showed that S was growing well, that none of my pain or illness seemed to be effecting her in any way, and likely if she came out at any moment that time forward she would be a healthy full-term infant who wouldn’t need a NICU stay (important, because our small city hospital didn’t have a NICU so she would have to be airlifted to a large hospital in Columbus with a NICU).

So when I got that 37 weeks cleared, I tried my best to walk as much as I could, which is the advice my doctor themself gave me: “walk that baby out of you.” It was so weird from working so hard to keep her in to actually wanting her out.

Part of me felt guilty for how urgently I wanted to give birth once I got the 37 week ok to be off bed rest. I heard a lot of (not specifically to me, but in society) “let them cook as long as you can,” “the baby will come when the time is right,” “your body knows best.”

But here’s the thing: through my entire pregnancy, I felt as if my body did not know best. It made me feel violently nauseous everyday, and expelled most things I attempted to eat. It was in so much pain I struggled to sleep, pretty much the entire pregnancy through. And with the “threatened abortion” on my mind, I felt like it didn’t know much about being pregnant, either. Of course, it wasn’t my fault any of these things were happening, but it had definitely ruined any trust I had in my body.

I had been having prodromal labor contractions. Prodromal labor is actual labor, different than Braxton-Hicks, and the contractions can be very painful. But they are barely productive, which is why it took weeks for me to go from a 2.5 to a 3.5 in dilation.

I walked for about two days as much as I could: which admittedly was not much. I had to take many breaks to lean on things, and at least one to throw up. It felt like a marathon just to walk around my apartment complex. I would walk a bit, then return to writhing on my apartment floor. It was all very glamorous.

The day after that, by midafternoon, my stomach literally felt hard. My doctor was out that day, but instructed that if it continued feeling like that into the evening.

When I got to the hospital, I was about 3.5 cm dilated…I’d been very slowly progressing from a 2.5 for weeks. They monitored me for a while, and I was having contractions (the same contractions I’d been having for weeks!), but they were unproductive, so they sent me home after a few hours of monitoring: but the triage nurse said she wouldn’t be surprised if she saw me again very soon.

I had a follow up appointment with my doctor the next day. She confirmed everything that L&D had said, and also that she believed I would probably be in productive labor very soon.

Well, both my doctor and triage ended up being right. The day after my appointment, two days after triage, after a day of walking as much as I could stand (so like around my apartment building and a parking lot’s length), the contractions started feeling different, more intense. I stayed home as long as I could tolerate: I took a bath, I was able to fall asleep, but I was awakened by the most painful series of contractions I’d had yet. My mother in law knew my screams meant it was time to go (she ended up visiting that day anyway: fortuitous timing), so she, my husband and I all drove to the hospital (and over a ridiculous number of speedbumps at my apartment complex, each one causing me to yelp in great pain).

When I reached the hospital and got up to triage, I was still only at a 3.8, but after about half an hour of walking the hallway I was over four cm dialated, the amount that it took for my hospital to admit me. It was officially go time.

Compared to the 37.5 previous weeks I was pregnant, the sixteen-ish hours I was in active labor were surprisingly OK. I had planned to have an all natural birth and to not have an epidural, mostly because that was what my mom did. But after laboring in the shower for a while, the doctor offered me a shot of medication to help the pain go away some so I could sleep (I don’t remember despite my best efforts what they said they were giving me, but it was likely Demerol). They did warn me that the second dose often wasn’t as effective.

I was able to sleep through the night until about 9 in the morning. My labor plateaued at 6.5 cm, so my doctor came in and broke my water. That’s when the contractions kicked it up into high gear. They gave me a 2nd shot, but it didn’t do anything. I finally agreed on the epidural.

The surgeon came fairly quickly and I got my epidural, and looked forward to the pain relief. It hadn’t kicked in yet about 10 minutes later when my doctor came to check on me. To her shock, and mine, I was somehow already over 9.5 cm dilated. It was time to push.

The epidural did not end up helping at all. Pushing was excruciating, and after one push, I yelled that I couldn’t do it. My doctor laughed, told me it was too late and her head was already out, and told me to push again. After two pushes, she was out like a cannonball. Compared to the rest of my pregnancy journey, I got off easy with pushing.

The next few minutes, while they stitched up my second degree tear, are blurry, but I do remember holding her for the first time after that and crying. She was mine, my baby. And after all that work, she was utterly, totally perfect (even though her face was bruised and her nose was smushed in, making her initially look a little like Voldemort).

I am so glad that from all of it, I had my daughter. The journey to give birth wasn’t easy, and my health has presented many problems since as well. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. On one hand, I know it is important for me to be truthful about the painful journey it took to have my daughter, and the daily pain I’ve been in since.

But on the other hand, motherhood, with all the growing pains and the learning curves and the difficulties, has been a beautiful gift. I love being my daughter’s mom, and I love the creative, inquisitive, scientific four year old (who has looked nothing like Voldemort since she was a day or so old) she has become. Every time I threw up, every hospital trip…it all led to the moments I get now, the relaxing evening spent laying in bed together as she draws and we talk about everything under the sun. It all led to this.

Welcome to My Parenting Journey

Hello loyal readers! As I attempt to write in this space more regularly, I have decided to write more about being a parent: specifically, about being a chronically ill/disabled parent to a (so far) very healthy, active child.

I admittedly have not written much about parenting here. I have one parenting related post, about what I would tell my chronically ill self before pregnancy, which was also posted on The Mighty. But I’ve never deeply delved into writing about the greatest current reality of my life, which is being a chronically ill working mother.

The reason I am starting to write about these realities is because I feel like my stories could add an important voice (a chronically ill, disabled voice) to the multitude of writings about parenting. I know many wonderful parents who live with chronic illness and disability, but posts focusing on that are largely absent from most parenting blogs.

I’m not much of a photographer, and I rarely share photos of my daughter on my blog, so these posts will be textual, more than anything. If you’re not a fan of this style, I encourage you to read another parenting blogger: there are so many great ones! But writing is how I best express myself.

I also will risk sounding one-note on this blog, as most of my posts will center around chronic illness parenting and its many different dimensions. This is because I know many wonderful parenting bloggers who write about a whole lot of different parenting issues, but chronic illness parenting is my specific experience, and the one that tends to be under-represented amoung parenting blogs.

So a little more about me, my family, and my context to blogging.

My husband and I are both 27, and have been married a little over five years, together for eight. We got married right after we graduated college, and right before starting graduate school. We wanted kids someday for sure, but we had a five year plan before we would talk about kids: we wanted to finish grad school, get established in our careers, and maybe buy a house first.

Well, that five year plan didn’t even last five weeks. Less than a month after our honeymoon, the day we moved into our first apartment together, I found out I was pregnant.

My daughter, S, is now 4 and a half (she’ll turn 5 in January and is already planning her LOL doll birthday party). She has been the greatest source of joy and adventure in our lives. She is a total fearless ball of energy and passion. Her current obsessions are art projects, dinosaurs, and her dollhouse. Her overabundance of energy and inability to calm her body are the #1 thing that get her in trouble these days. She is also very smart and inquisitive, and we truly have great conversations.

However, despite S being our greatest blessing and never wanting to change our lives’ trajectory for the world, pregnancy came with some unique challenges centered around my health that never let up.

I’ve never been completely healthy. I’ve had migraines since elementary school and ovarian cysts since 8th grade, along with a series of other symptoms that all make sense in hindsight.

But pregnancy was definitely the sickest I’d ever been up to that point. I threw up multiple times every day, from six weeks until after I delivered. I was in the hospital multiple times: I had a threatened miscarriage at 13 weeks and almost lost her, and she tried to come early 4 times before she arrived at 37.5 weeks. I had severe back pain and was on bedrest much of the time.

I hoped delivering would bring relief, but unfortunately, it was just the beginning. Breastfeeding was extremely painful. My chronic cysts flared up like never before. I had the worst migraines of my life.

By the end of 2016, I was diagnosed with a number of incurable lifelong conditions, a number that continues to grow. I have Chiari Malformation, which is a brain condition, Generalized Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, Postural Tachycardia, lots of allergies, chronic ovarian cysts, abdominal migraines, and probably some I’m forgetting. I sometimes need to use a wheelchair for my hypermobility pain and my tachycardia, especially at places like the zoo. I take many medications every day.

I am thankful to also be able to continue working, which I know is a privilege for a chronically ill person, but is also incredibly trying at times. I try my best to strike a balance. I have my Masters of Divinity in Youth and Young Adult Development, and work in after school programming, a field I love. I am starting at a new school and moving three hours away from our current location in a few weeks, so everything is really a whirlwind right now, especially with trying to keep my pain in check.

In the next few months as I delve into writing about parenting, I plan to focus on quite a few topics, most of them related to illness and disability and how it relates to parenting. These topics will include:

• Balancing career, parenting, and chronic illness
• Parenting while in graduate school
• Making time for creativity as a mom with chronic illness
• Moving with a kid and a chronic illness
• My pregnancy with undiagnosed chronic illness
• Privilege, chronic illness, and parenting
• Planning a family vacation with chronic illness
• My daily chronic illness parenting routine
• My only child and my chronic illness
• Planning with a child and chronic illness

I am excited to have the chance to write about my parenting journey, and hopefully to be a voice for and to speak to other parents that face similar challenges. And even if you don’t face chronic illness issues alongside your parenting, I hope I’m able to be a representative for the many that do.

Chronically Ill Cooking with The New Southern Cookbook

Living life with chronic illness often gets in the way of writing about life with chronic illness. Exhibit A: this blog has sat dormant since March. Some probably doubted I’d ever return to it…heck, I even thought that sometimes.

Unlike this blog, I have not sat dormant. It’s been a wild summer. I’ve been working a new job that I love, learning a lot; lost a dear relative who I am still mourning; and dealt a lot with blows to my health. Chronic sinuses have been the biggest issue. Luckily I don’t need surgery, I just found out, but I will need a new specialist, an allergist. So that’ll be 3 new specialists in just a few months…

With all of this, it’s hard to fit daily responsibilities into my life and navigate new illness challenges at the same time. One of the things I haven’t done most of the summer is cook. My microwave is my best friend. We ate a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, and a lot of microwave staples. The freezer aisle has definitely come a long way with healthy choices! Still, I never thought of myself as someone who could fit cooking for my family into my regular life. But sometimes a positive change just takes a kickstart from a good friend.

I am so thankful for the chronic illness friendships I have made on this crazy connective tissue disorder/postural tachycardia/Chiari/the list goes on journey.

One of my closest chronic illness friends, the wildly talented Brittany Wattenbarger, and her equally talented mother, Pam Wattenbarger of Simply Southern Mom, have written a cookbook, The New Southern Cookbook.

They sent me a copy of the book to review, and let me tell you, this is definitely a cookbook you should run out and get (even if you cook as little as I do). They clearly poured their heart into each page: every recipe, from the barbecue shrimp to the fried chicken comes with a personal family story of the dish. It’s definitely a book that focuses both on Southern heritage and on farm-to-table, produce/whole food focused goodness. As a family with food allergies, there are also tips to make each recipe allergy-friendly, and many of them vegetarian.

Of course, it probably wouldn’t be a proper review of a cookbook if I didn’t…umm…cook something. So after looking for the most chronic illness friendly recipe–limited chopping, limited standing over the stove–I settled on “My Dad’s Favorite Chili.”

I got all my ingredients ready, and employed my 4 year old daughter, who loves to cook with me, to help. Laying out all the ingredients first definitely helps me as someone with chronic illness. No reaching for stuff mid recipe and accidentally missing a step. I also used frozen chopped onions instead of fresh, which Brittany actually advised. They’re a Godsend…I truly hate chopping onions. It’s one of the worst tasks on my joints!

The recipe came together super easily, as you can see below. The steps were consise but still thorough.

Here’s the chili simmering on the stove! Almost done!

I served it with some zucchini, prechopped, and some green beans, mushrooms, and onions, all which I got on sale that day. Pre prepared veggies are a lifesaver for me and really encourage me to cook. My daughter requested the zucchini: it is her favorite.

I cannot underscore how truly delicious this chili is. I’ve had a lot of good chili, but this is far and away my favorite. I’ve since then made a double batch! Even my husband, who has never liked chili, loves it, and it’s totally kid friendly too. My daughter gobbled it up both times I made it!

I would definitely recommend this cookbook to my fellow chronic illness readers who are trying to get into cooking again. I love how it got me back in the kitchen!

How Chronic Illness Has Taught Me to Embrace Slowing Down to Reach my Goals

Bubble bath rewards for little goals reached

I have always been a goal-oriented person. I have always had clear goals, both short-term and long-term, and have taken great joy out of achieving them.

I have learned to enjoy having goals and dreams, but not to determine my worth on how many of them I’m able to meet: and, especially, how quickly I’m able to meet them.

My junior year in high school, I took Introduction to Sociology, and one of our last assignments was to write a letter to our future selves, to be opened in five year’s time. We were supposed to write about our goals and dreams for the future. Most of my classmates were probably realistic: college, careers, maybe marriage. I am sure I mentioned those things. I also mentioned publishing a novel and meeting Oprah.

Of course, when five years from them rolled around, not all of that letter had come to fruition. I was a junior in college and doing well in school, so that had happened, and was in a really solid relationship with the man who would end up being my husband. I was still friends with my high school friends. But I had not, obviously, published a novel or been on Oprah.

Still, I made really fast progress on most of my realistic goals: But that was all pre-chronic illness.

I’ve never been a totally healthy person. However, I consider what I call my “chronic illness journey” to have begun when I was pregnant with my first and only child, my daughter S who is now four.

Having my daughter totally turned my world upside down in so many different ways, and I would never change it for the world.

Before I had S, I had a “five year plan” between getting married a week before my 22nd birthday (2 weeks after my college graduation ceremony, though I officially graduated a semester earlier) and trying for our first child. I had already been accepted for seminary, and my husband to law school. I planned for us both to get well-established in our careers and buy a house and build roots in a community before we started a family and had at least two kids.

Of course, that all went out the window: exactly five years early. My husband and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary in early May. Our daughters is 4, and came a few weeks early.

S was never part of the plan–but she was a delightful surprise. Chronic illness, however, was a less-delightful surprise. If having a daughter made my plans take a U-turn, the illness it brought out brought them all to a screeching, dramatic halt: or so it seemed at the time.

Despite the brakes my chronic illnesses have thrown on, however, I still have learned that I can meet my goals and dreams: just at a slower pace. In fact, that might actually be a good thing, because now I can really “stop and smell the flowers” and appreciate the progress that I’m making.

Two seemingly-opposite tools help me keep checking off boxes, albeit at a much slower pace. These are planning and flexibility.

There are two types of planning I employ in my everyday life: short-range, and long-range. Back before I was sick, I was much more of a long-range planner. I had those big ambitious plans, but no real idea of the steps I would take to get there, at least not the little ones.

Now, I still have big goals. Admittedly, it took some time. When I first started getting really sick, and then started putting labels on my illnesses, I went through a long mourning period, during which I wondered if I should even have dreams and goals for my life at all.

They definitely changed. Having S changed my career ambitions once, and chronic illness changed them again. For a while, I was worried about how long I would even be able to work. Luckily, I have made a lot of life changes, thanks to a lot of good doctors and solid diagnosises, that have alleviated those fears, and I also have some brand new, exciting dreams on the table.

But, the difference about these goals and goals of the past is I’m not even putting them on a timetable: I’m recognizing that they can take as long as they need to take, and if they need to change or evolve into something else because of my illness, that is OK.

The most important piece of advice I’ve ever gotten is from my friend who is like a brother to me, and it’s something I’ve mentioned here before but it’s worth reiterating because it’s so, so important. I am not defined by my accomplishments. I am not defined by how fast I meet my goals, or if I meet my goals at all. That’s something I’ve learned since my chronically ill journey has started, and something that has helped me embrace this new, slower pace.

That’s why the second word that has been essential in my goal-making process has become “flexibility.” This is true in both those long-range goals and my short-term goals (which I will get to in a minute.) Sometimes, flexibility means saving something for the next day. Sometimes, it means realizing it’s not going to work altogether. It means knowing that it’s ok to be upset for a bit about having to abandon something I really wanted to do or miss out on something, but know that it was ultimately for my health and overall well-being. That way, I’m able to move on and have a positive outlook about it.

Many of my goals are very big and nebulous, out in the future with no specific time table since I want to do what’s best for my health and prioritize my family, faith, and self first: going back to school, switching careers, publishing a novel and series. But day to day, I focus on much more achievable “micro goals.”

With chronic illness, I have found that it is much more achievable to get what I want to get done accomplished when I break everything into very bite-sized pieces, and only push myself to do a few bites per day. I can do a few more bites if I’m having a good day: or, if I’m sick on top of chronic illness, or some other circumstance arises, maybe I just need to cut down to the bare essential number of bites.

For instance, I’ll plan out each week tasks that I have to get done: bills I have to pay, work tasks I have to do in addition to my regular shift, things I need to do for my daughter, medications I have to pick up, appointments; and things I’d like to get done. Anything I can break up into a smaller task I do. I do cleaning tasks in short intervals. It often takes me multiple days to write a blog post because I write it in 5 or 10 minute chunks at a time. I’ll call the pharmacy one day to refill a prescription and pick it up the next, even though it’s ready that day. Might not be the fastest way of doing things, but slow and steady wins the race! Of course, anything urgent, I get done when it arises, which is why it’s even more important that I conserve energy with non-urgent tasks for when these urgent needs and emergencies come up.

I am also sure to plan–and record!–self-care. I will go more into my recording processes in a future post: writing what I do down helps remind me that I actually am working toward and accomplishing something, even when it feels like I’m not. And even though sometimes it feels unnecessary, it’s important for me to keep self-care habits, like rest, taking time to read, recharge, plan, do things I enjoy, read my bible, etc., because I know that without these things, it is much, much harder, if not impossible, for me to keep up the other goals.

In addition to breaking my goals into small, achievable tasks, I motivate myself–especially during the hard weeks and for the hardest tasks–with “mini-rewards” and “mini-celebrations.”

Sometimes, especially when things are going well or it’s an accomplishment I’m particularly proud of, simply completing something is intrinsically a reward in itself. Or sometimes it’s a goal with a built-in reward, like a good score on a test or a graduate school acceptance (not that I’ve gotten any of those recently.)

But getting through a really hard work week with a kid who gets hurt at school, a flat tire, and a double sinus infection does not intrinsically come with a reward. Calling to talk to insurance 20 times in a weekend when you have phone anxiety? Has to be done but, you’ve got it, no built-in reward.

So I motivate myself with little things. I buy myself nice bath products and reward myself with bubble baths. I’ll read a chapter of a book (or at least a few pages) after I do a load of laundry. I started a slow collection of Disney Tsum Tsums I’m displaying on my dresser as a motivator (I got one as a gift and have bought two so far.) Every hard week I get through or particularly hard thing I do, I get to pick one out. I haven’t been on a vacation in over a year and rarely do big things for myself, but little things are nice motivators to keep pushing through.

In my next couple posts, I am going to be talking about small, concrete ways i achieve my goals slowly but surely. These include using a planner and multitasking.

I might not be in the place I saw myself back in high school. The pace my life is taking is slowing down, but honestly, every day it does, I am thankful it does. I am thankful for the times I am able to truly catch my breath and be thankful for all the things my life is full of. Chronic illness may have changed the pace of my life, but it hasn’t changed the beauty of it.

How to Keep Moving Forward When Life Wants to Get You Down

The day before Valentine’s day, it was a lung infection and a prescription for an antibiotic I turned out to be allergic to. A week of hives later, there are now four classes of antibiotics I’m allergic to and another I shouldn’t take except in emergencies because of my connective tissue disorder.

It was a month-old flu, that I got in January, that led to that lung infection. Less than a month later, on March 3, I woke up on Saturday morning with what I thought was one of the worst migraines I’d ever had.

Basically, all this leads to me being sick practically all of 2018. Time has flown by, mostly because it has been a fog of illness and new fun symptoms on top of my regular chronic illnesses.

Then, on top of that, after a week of a sinus infection on top of a double ear infection when all I wanted to do was go home and sleep, I blew a flat tire on my way home from school. It had a stripped lugnut, all the mechanics in the tiny city were busy, and it took up a day and a half to get it changed. My head pain was excruciating through all of it.

In my last post, I wrote about acceptance. Accepting my chronic illnesses as part of my life and knowing my body and how it responds to said illnesses is the most important thing I need to do to reach my goals and live a full life with chronic illness. But “muggle illnesses”–something that some chronically ill people call short-term sicknesses that everyone get, like colds and flus and infections–really throw wrenches in the works.

I am a goal-oriented person. Each year, I choose a word that is my goal for the year. I am constantly trying to improve myself in ways big and small. This Lent alone, I made three small goals. And here comes sickness, and all I want to do is lay in bed and feel absolutely miserable and sorry for myself.

So, what’s there to do?

The pace changes when I’m sick. Sometimes, it feels like it nearly stops, or at least slows to a crawl: and even that crawl, the crawl of necessary daily duties (parenting, work, keeping the house and one’s personal appearance in some sort of ordee) seems insurmountable.

On top of that, my big life goals, my husband’s big life goals, so many potential changes in the future, loom and hang. But how can I possibly think about those when the present seems so insurmountable, when I can barely think past the pressure in my sinuses and the pounding in my ears, when the pain won’t stop?

The answer is that one tiny step, the tiniest of steps, is still a step forward.

I have a print on my wall, by my favorite inspirational mental health artist The Latest Kate (who I have written about before) that reads “progress is progress no matter how small.” I try to remember it during these periods of life getting me down on top of everyday chronic illness. Even when it is hard to see, I am still making progress.

Healing is progress. If I wasn’t resting, wasn’t taking care of myself, wasn’t taking my medicine and treating myself well, wasn’t seeing the doctors and doing the other necessary steps I need to do to get better, I would be sicker a lot longer. Yes, this doesn’t feel like progess, but it is. I’m not going to reach any of the goals I want to in the long term if I don’t do what I need to do to restore my body to the health it is normally at in the short term.

Each task I complete every day is progress. It might not seem like it. But it is a step forward. Every day is a new one. It is a day where I have a chance to learn something new and maybe improve myself: but if nothing else, maybe my sinuses will clear up a little bit.

Progress is progress. I might have to take tiny steps towards my goals some days, and they might seem meaningless. But everything means something, and the more I try, despite my struggles, the more I win the battle against the random life events that knock me down.

The Advice I Would Have Given Myself When I Began My Chronic Illness Journey

The me I’m getting to know

Recently, I was asked, in a wonderful chronic illness group I’m a part of, what advice I would give to someone with chronic illness. Giving advice to people with chronic illness is tricky. Chronic illnesses are all so different; even two people with the same illness can react very differently. Some people with hypermobility disorders like I have are running marathons; others struggle daily even getting out of bed. I am somewhere in the middle, though even that varies day to day.

And most people with chronic illness are no stranger to mostly bad advice. I haven’t heard too much personally; I’ve been lucky in that regard, but many of my chronically ill friends have heard some doozies. “Just think positively and your illness will go away!” “You need to be doing yoga!” “You need to take this supplement I just happen to sell!”

So, instead, I framed the question as what advice would I have found most beneficial to receive back when my chronic illness journey began. It’s taken me a while to learn this, but the #1 thing that helps me in my chronic illness is simple in theory, but difficult in practice: get to know yourself. Specifically, get to know your whole self, including and especially the illnesses that are a part of that self.

I always thought I did know myself. I’ve always been fairly introspective and self-aware, often too much so; to the point where I would get stuck in my own head.

But while I knew a lot of different parts of myself, one part of myself I never truly got to know was my ill self: I never truly thought about how my chronic illnesses were a part of me, and integrated them into my experience.

I was treating my illnesses like they were something external. Because of this, I often got down on myself whenever my illnesses affected me. I treated it like it was something I could overcome, and since I wasn’t overcoming it, there must be something deficient in me.

Every time I got a flare or my low immune system made me catch another illness, the way I felt about my illnesses would rear its ugly head. It was clear they were affecting my self-esteem in such a negative way. I hadn’t accepted that my illnesses were here to stay, that they were a part of me, and because of that, I was making myself more miserable than the illnesses were.

It was clear what I had to do: I had to learn to truly accept myself, and know myself, and a huge part of that was accepting all my illnesses, all my chronic conditions, as part of what makes me who I am.

There are two things acceptance didn’t mean, so I want to make that evident, because acceptance can sometimes get blurred with these two things. Acceptance didn’t mean liking my illnesses, and it didn’t mean giving up, either.

I don’t like that I get migraines and joint pain every day. I don’t like how easily I get fatigued and out of breath regardless of how long I work to build endurance. I don’t like that I have daily allergic hive reactions to seemingly nothing.

And I’m not just going to lay down in defeat and not try to minimize the side effects of these conditions. I’m not going to give up taking the medications that help me, and I’m not going to give up looking for other ways to manage my conditions.

What it does mean that I’m no longer treating my illnesses like something external, something I can overcome, or a character flaw. I’m treating them like the parts of me they are. They are as innate in me as my hair color (…when I’m not dyeing it) or my eye color or my height.

I could every day get down on myself for being 5’11”, but no amount of self-loathing is going to make me 5’2″. I am tall. I have spent most of my life accepting that I am tall, and conceptualizing myself as a tall person. My height has given me some natural limitations through my life.

And now, I’m trying to think of my illnesses the same way I have always thought about my height. I have Chiari malformation. There are things this limits. I need to avoid back of the head contact. I get many different kinds of headaches and migraines, which limit some social situations. I require more rest than a lot of people. I have to do things in small pieces (especially housework.)

These aren’t things to overcome, like I’ve tried to do in the past. They are just realities of who I am. And instead of fighting who I am, I am learning how to work with who I truly am. I am learning how much I require pacing in my life, and better pacing my time and balancing rest and work.

Accepting my illnesses has helped me know myself a whole lot better, and I only wish I would have gotten to know this me, the ill me, the full picture of me, earlier. Because honestly, this me is pretty great. She is incredibly empathetic. She knows what it is like to struggle, and can pick up on others struggling. She is caring, and a good listener. She is kind. She is smart, a quick reader, and a great writer. She is a loving, devoted mom, wife, educator, and caregiver. She is an interested, eager to learn student. She walks in her faith and aspires to grow more in it daily.

And yes, she’s ill, too.

Lent and my Chronic Illness

Today, I am writing about something specifically from my own Christian worldview, but many of the things I’m writing about, about adding new habits and patterns or giving things up, while still having chronic illness, could be applicable to anyone with chronic illness who wants to make changes in their life.

We are now a few days into Lent, which began, this year, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, with Ash Wednesday. Lent is a season in the Christian calender that begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter Sunday: 40 days in total, not including Sundays. It mirrors Christ’s 40 days of fasting and prayer in the desert directly after his baptism, right before his public ministry started.

Many Christians commemorate the Lenten season by choosing to either give something up or add something. The goal of such an act, for a Christian, is to get closer to God. For instance, if one were to give up social media, they would spend the time they were normally on Facebook praying, reading the Bible, or other more fruitful endeavors.

One could also give up something they feel is distracting them from their faith, or keeping them from their God-given purpose. For instance, one year back in high school I gave up energy drinks. I had become quite dependent on them, drinking several a day, and they were detrimental to my physical health. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, the Bible says our body is a temple, and I realized I could not fully use my body as God intended if I continued doing something I knew was destructive to it. I gave them up and haven’t drunk them since.

I have been praying for a while now about what, if anything, I should do for Lent this year. Giving things up and taking on new commitments, even for noble purposes, can be more difficult when you have chronic illness.

I remember the last time I tried fasting. I was in high school, and participating in a day-long fast in order to raise money to help those in hunger all over the world. About 18 hours into the fast, I became extremely ill. I ended up having to break the fast, which helped some, but fasting also lowered my immune system, as any big change is prone to do in me: I get sick super easily. I was sick, and also likely in a flare (none of my chronic issues were diagnosed yet) for the next few weeks.

And another time, not for Lent but because I was trying to make “healthier” choices in my life that I thought would help my fibro (before I learned that fibro was only a comorbid condition of the hypermobility disorder and Chiari malformation I had not yet been diagnosed with), I gave up coffee and any tea with high caffeine (like black tea) and replaced them with drinking large quantities of water.

A few days in, I was hit with one of the worst flares I’ve ever had. I later learned that caffeine was something that we had successfully used to treat the symptoms of my Chiari when I was first diagnosed in 8th grade (so successfully that I forgot about the diagnosis!). I started drinking caffeine in moderation again, and feel so much better! I also learned that, due to my dysautonomia, large amounts of water actually make me sicker, and I need electrolytes in my water to make me feel better.

But I have also given up and added things that have made a tremendous positive impact on my life. Last August, for health reasons (mainly migraines, including abdominal migraines), I decided to extremely limit my consumption of alcohol. Since August, I have only drank 4 times. This was an extremely positive choice, though I didn’t do it at Lent in that case.

Last year for Lent, I worked on implementing a daily Bible reading practice. I’ve tried to read through the Bible before, or read the Bible everyday, but usually these well meaning practices have gotten abandoned a few weeks (or less!) in. But successfully spending quiet time in the Word everyday during Lent was the ticket for me to learn how to have an everyday practice. At first, after Lent, I missed a few days here and there, but now that it has become such a well ingrained habit, the tracker on my Bible app says I have read 102 days in a row.

If you are chronically ill and debating giving something up or adding something, whether for Lent or otherwise, it is important to consider whether it is sustainable for your own body and its unique needs. Some things that a healthy person would be able to give up may not be plausible for you. For instance, every chronically ill person has unique dietary needs. Giving up red meat may not be a good choice for you if you struggle consistently with low iron. There are many chronically ill people who are limited in diet and would not do well on, say, a vegan diet.

All of my goals this year are adding something rather than giving something up. Adding something can be much easier than giving something up, and I have found that it coincides often better with a life of chronic illness, especially if what you’re already doing habit wise is necessary for your life.

A reason to choose to give something up instead would be if you’re doing something in your life that keeps you from God (from a Christian perspective) and/or that keeps you from flourishing; especially if it’s something that makes your illnesses worse. If you’re eating in a way that makes you sicker and a dietary change is going to even possibly help your symptoms, then it’s a great thing to try.

When choosing a goal, it was helpful for me to think; is there anything I already do in my life that I know is good for me, but I want to do more consistently? If it’s something I’m already doing in my life, I know it’s something that’s good for me and my chronic illnesses. It’s also an easier baby step into life change than adding something totally foreign, like an exercise regimine for someone who is fairly sedentary. Any big changes all at once are also prone to sending me into a flare, so I try to implement change slowly and steadily.

This year, I have three goals that coincide with the season of Lent. Like my last year Bible reading practice, I am hoping that these are things that will continue far longer than Lent. While I am doing three things this Lenten season, I would urge you, if you’re new to a regular goal-setting, habit-keeping process, especially whilst being chronically ill, to start small and just choose one.

Only one of my three goals was originally chosen for Lent; one is something I wanted to start at the beginning of the year but hasn’t happened yet so I figured now is finally a good time for it, and the other is something that my doctor recommended the day before Lent that just happens to fall into this season.

My first goal is to consistently clean my house or do some type of housework at least 10 minutes a day. Doing housework consistently is a challenge for me as a working, chronically ill mom. When I get home, I am exhausted. I tend to do cleaning in big, dramatic bursts of cleaning an entire day for hours, which isn’t usually good because it can send me into a flare. My goal, then, is to build a pattern where I’m doing some concentrated housework every day. Some days it will obviously be more than 10 minutes, but 10 minutes is manageable even on my worst days.

My second, a health-related goal recommended by my doctor, is to focus on gaining weight. I lost a lot of weight in early December because of illness, which was alarming because I am already underweight. I am working on finding healthy foods that work with my body (which can respond badly to a lot of things) that help me gain weight healthily.

My third is to attempt to write at least one blog post a week, consistently. I blog like I clean: I get bursts where I blog a lot, and then disappear for months. I want to work on being more consistent with my blog writing.

As I wrap up this post, one last piece of advice I would give is to not be too hard on yourself if you mess up on your goals, and to continue to evaluate whether or not it is a good goal for your life and your chronic illness(es). If something is clearly not a fit for your life, isn’t helping your relationship with God, and is making you sicker, there is no shame in giving it up. Don’t feel like you’re failing by not sticking to all of Lent: if it’s not productive for your life or faith, you’re causing more harm by sticking to it and doing more good by abandoning it.

And if you find a practice that is good for you, your health, and faith, but you go into a flare and can’t do it one day, don’t feel like you’ve failed and have to give it up. Grace is always sufficient, and there’s always tomorrow to try again.

My One Word Resolution for 2018: Light

Last year, 2017, was my first year picking a word to shape my year. My word was well, which I wrote about here and here, as well as mentioning it regularly throughout my other posts. 

Now, as 2018 dawns, it is time to choose a new word, something that has been in-process for a while. I started thinking about what word to pick in October, when I heard the Christian song “Light Shine Bright” by tobyMac featuring Mandissa. The first line is 

“Lights shine bright everywhere we go Music for the people to illuminate the soul.” 

So I started thinking my word for 2018 was going to be “bright.” I thought this for several reasons: because I want to live in a way that was bright and inspiring, an advocate for chronic illness and for my faith; because I am optimistic 2018 will be a bright year; and because I want to continue to focus on Christ’s bright light as the number one thing in my life. 

But then, the end of 2017 began to get heavy, especially health-wise, and “bright” didn’t feel sufficient. I needed a new word, one that helped me refocus my anxiety and focus on what was truly important in my life. So the word “breathe” came to mind. I often forget to really breathe correctly–deep, calming breaths–and doing so not only really refocuses me, but is a spiritual act in itself. Focusing on my breath reminds me of my connection to God and what is truly important in my life, and how tenuous the unimportant, temporary stresses are. 

But again, the word “breathe” didn’t feel like enough for the promise that I feel like 2018 holds. 2018 is a year where I really want my word to challenge me, to help me focus on all the promise and adventure and momentum that 2017 led up to. I liked that about “bright.” 

The last word I considered before I stumbled upon my 2018 word was acceptance. Acceptance of myself as a permanently sick person and integrating that into my identity as not a weakness but a strength and something I’m alright with is a major personal goal of mine for 2018. But I was searching for a word that brought together all these elements: bright, breathe, acceptance. 

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and one of the lines early in the song is “let your heart be light.” That feeling of lightness is exactly what I want for 2018: and, thus, I had chosen a new word. 

The word light is able to capture multitude meanings at once, which is why I selected it. From a faith perspective, light is often used a metaphor for Christ. Choosing the word light helps me refocus and fix my eyes on what is truly important, which,is first and foremost my faith. Everything else is an outpouring of that. 

Light also means the opposite of heavy, and lightening of burdens is something Christ does as well. My focus passage for 2018 is Matthew 11:28-30. Both The Message paraphrase and the CEB translation really resonated with me: 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” — Matthew 11: 28-30 (The Message) 

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” —Matthew 11:28-30 CEB 

The second meaning of light is what I wanted to capture in the word bright: being a shining light in the world. I want to use the momentum and wellness I built up in 2017 to continue growing and learning so that I can help others through any positive way I can. I want to shine my light in both big and small ways: as an educator, as a writer, as a Christian, as a chronic illness advocate, as a mom. If any new pathways open up to make a greater impact open up, I want to be brave enough to pursue them. I don’t know exactly what 2018 will hold, but I am excited for the ways God will use my light. 

The other meaning of the word light that I’m focusing on in 2018, as I mentioned with my focus verse above, is the opposite of heavy, and I’m going to be intentional about ways to let my heart and life feel lighter going into this new year.

I am working on gradually cleaning out, going through, and getting organized throughout this year, letting go of things that weigh me down so I can be lighter and more focused on the things that do matter. Some of this is spiritual and emotional: working through letting go of anxiety and hang ups over illness, for instance, like I mentioned above. But some of it is literal and practical as well. 

On the practical side, I want to focus on minimalism and cleaning out and making space this year. I have already started cleaning my house and purging out things we aren’t using, and helping teach my daughter that art as well: she’s only 4, but I started teaching her for the first time about donating her old toys she doesn’t play with so she would have room for her new stuff. 

I’m expanding that cleaning out and minimalism to my online world and habits as well. I left a bunch of time wasting, negative Facebook groups to lighten up my time and clear up my priorities for what is truly important. 

The last few years, 2013 on, have all brought major twists and adventures that I did not see coming.  I have a feeling 2018 will be no exception to big changes and adventures. But with the word light as my guide, I think 2018 is going to be a bright one.