Fall seven times, stand up eight

 

 

Here's another... So the whole process of living with chronic illness is like running a really slow, really pointless marathon, with no finishing line. You are constantly falling over and you constantly have to pick yourself up. However often you fall, you can't stay down.

With IC in particular, you have the pain of needing to pee, the brief relief afterwards, and then the pain building up again, which becomes unbearable if you can't relieve it.... Fuck the embarrassment, fuck what other people think....I am way past that..... It's the constant process of falling into the red hot fire of the pain, and then dusting yourself off , picking yourself up, and carrying on with some task you need to do (in my case, caring for my two children), before the pain hits again and you fall into it once more.....

I read a great quote today. If you're sick of me complaining about my IC, let me set fire to your balls and see how you like it.

The silent bravery of everyone who lives daily in chronic pain and does not give up / hurl themselves off a building or under a bus.... it's remarkable, when you stop to think about it.