To People With Illnesses Who Have Lost Hope

This is to whoever feels stuck in their chronic illness. When you feel like the medicine isn’t working anymore. When you feel like you can’t swallow any more meds. When the doctors give you more meds to counteract the side effects of your other meds. When your esophagus can’t swallow another pill the size of a quarter!

This is for whoever can’t sleep. This is also for those who sleep all night but wake up feeling completely unrested. For those who feel the frustration of remembering falling asleep but not understanding why the 13 hours you slept didn’t do squat.

This is for those who wear the bags under their eyes like a fashion statement. For those of you who know there’s no way you can make them go away, and it takes too much effort to cover them up anyway.

This is for those who are about to give up on their doctor, whether it’s your first or your fifth. For those who can’t take being told you’re “crazy” or your symptoms are “all in your head” anymore. For those who are beyond frustrated with their health insurance companies. For the chronically ill who don’t know who to turn regarding their health and feel so distrustful of any doctor.

This is for anyone with any chronic illness, mental health issue, pain, sickness, exhaustion and/or frustration:

Keep going. You are loved. You are a fighter.

The only thing stronger than your fear and your frustration is your hope. Do not ever lose hope. Even if the only hope you can find is the fact that your Wi-Fi is strong enough to play Netflix through your sleepless nights of binge watching — keep up that hope. Hope in something — in anything — gives one the desire to keep going and to keep fighting.

Hope is the one thing nobody can take away from you. Only you can choose to let it go. Hope is like that little flame inside you that keeps you going. So hope for a cure. Hope for a diagnosis. Hope for an understanding doctor. And if you have lost hope in all of those, hope you can get that 45-minute nap in. Hope for a reason to smile. Hope a sympathetic friend will call you today.

And if you’ve lost hope in all of these things, then hope for a new day. Hope for the sun to come up the next day. Find something to hope for and let that flame ignite into something bigger.

Hope for someone who won’t judge you. Hope for someone who wants to help. Or just hope for an understanding family member to hug you today. Hope for the ability today to get up and walk around the block. Hope for the energy to shave your legs in the shower today. Find something to hope for and don’t lose it.

— The Lyme Warrior

Follow this journey on Blame the Tick.

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