. Living a life free of stress-

Because there is always something going wrong with your body. Daily there are many symptoms to manage.

My mental health –

when you are struggling with pain and the ongoing grief of a life with chronic illness.  It takes a huge toll on your mental health.

Physical health

My chronic illnesses affect my extremities, weakness in limbs, joint and neuropathic pain, my immune system is a whack. Cardiovascular, dental, urinary and bowel, gastric , vascular and reproductive system are affected by my illness. So pretty much everything.

My career choices

When you have to work around your illness everything becomes a chore. I had to give up my career dreams, and my potential because too much energy is required to survive from day to day.

Friendships and family support

When you are always sick. People get exhausted of you. They get tired of hearing your rants and concerns. Also many of them are able bodied healthy people who may not be able to comprehend the ways in which the illness is affecting your life. I understand care giving is not easy .

Companionship

Relationships or dating when you are running from appointments to appointments, always medicated and exhausted, hard to be around, relationships take a backseat then. Also it’s not easy to find a partner who can stand with you through thick and thin always. Also you live with the guilt that you aren’t good enough.

Having kids

When you have a risk factor that you may pass your health issues to your kids in future or that you may not be able to take care of them . You have to take the decision not to have kids sometimes. Also when your reproductive system may not function , you are sometimes snatched away from that choice. Also if you adopt but can never be the stable or caring figure due to constant pain they can rely on. You have to take hard decisions.

Financial security

When you are always sick and need to see several doctors and this goes on indefinitely. Also medicines, therapeutic procedure, hospital admissions. All that require money. And over the years becomes hard to manage. Sometimes it feels how much you are earning doesn’t seem enough in front of your medical needs.

And lastly everything you do, require much more efforts than a healthy person. You have to prioritise, take days off, give up on few things, accomodate things according to your pain levels. Yes, there are good days and bad days. But this seems an ongoing grief that keep returning in full cycles and hit you hard on your bad days.