National Invisible Illness Week

This week is National Invisible Illness Week!  You can learn more about it at http://invisibleillnessweek.com/.  They have a "30 things"  survey for people to fill out on their blogs, so I decided to participate so you can learn a little more about life with my "mystery illness."


1. The illness I live with is: An undiagnosed one that the doctors are still trying to figure out.


2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: Hopefully it'll be this year!

3. But I had symptoms since: 2008

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: Limiting what I do each day because of my illness and trying to be a college student at the same time.  Going from an 18:20 5k runner to not being able to make it through a 30 minute easy run pretty much sums up how it's affected me in every other aspect of life, too.
5. Most people assume: I'm better because I'm back at school.  Not true.

6. The hardest part about mornings are: Getting out of bed after not being able to sleep throughout the night.

7. My favorite medical TV show is: House

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: My Ipod Nano.  Listening to christian music helps me to keep my perspective on life when I'm feeling down about being sick.

9. The hardest part about nights are: Being so tired yet not being able to sleep.  Achey nights are the worst!

10. Each day I take __ pills & vitamins. (No comments, please) I only take one right now!  My doctors have stripped me of all my meds, seeing as we don't know what's causing what. I'm a huge fan of not having to take so many pills each day anymore!

11. Regarding alternative treatments I: think a mixture of alternative and traditional can be beneficial, but I do think that people should listen to the people who know about the treatments the most (doctors) and take their advice and not jump onto the bandwagon of thinking that all alternative treatments are better for you than other treatments.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: Sometimes I wish it was visible so that people could tell that I really feel like poop instead of assuming I'm okay, but I think it'd be a terrible mistake to think that people who have a visible illness have it any easier.

13. Regarding working and career: I'm a college student, but I'm not taking as many credits as I would if I were healthy.  I'm definitely not able to have a job on top of college right now!

14. People would be surprised to know: that telling a sick person that they can tell they are doing better because they look good is probably the worse thing that you can say to them.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: Not knowing what to do to make things better.  I like to be able to take control and fix what's wrong, but being undiagnosed has made that impossible.  It's taught me that the only thing I can do is to keep trusting God.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: come back to school!

17. The commercials about my illness: ... there aren't any, seeing as I'm still undiagnosed.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: running cross country.

19. It was really hard to have to give up: Running, and everything that goes with it.  I never realized how much it affected my entire lifestyle until I couldn't do it anymore.

20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: Swimming! I never knew how to swim until I was too sick to run, and now I enjoy swimming laps!

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: Dance like crazy, go for a long run (while jumping in puddles), hang out with friends, play ultimate frisbee, roller blade, etc.

22. My illness has taught me: so much about my faith and what it really means to trust God and live for Him.  It's also taught me to have compassion for other people who are suffering in ways that I didn't understand before.

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "I'm glad to see you're feeling better!"

24. But I love it when people: Ask me how I'm doing... it means a lot to know that people care and are curious about how I feel and what's going on in my life.  I'm also a huge fan of hugs.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." -Proverbs 3:5
I can always use a reminder that God knows exactly how I feel and that He has a plan that is so much greater than anything I can even imagine!

26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: God is going to work through this in ways that will blow your mind.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: Life keeps going.  That might sound weird, but it's a strange feeling to spend a week in the clinic and then step back out in the real world and realize that things are exactly the way they were before, even though you feel like you've been in an entirely different world.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: send me notes and packages in the mail!  There's nothing like a surprise in the mail!

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: I know what it's like to have an invisible illness, and it's made me realize how many people are affected by them.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Excited! It's a cool feeling to know that other people are curious about life with an invisible illness.