10 Problems You'll Understand If You're a Spoonie

Having a chronic illness comes with a unique set of problems. Problems I don’t think healthy people could ever truly understand. You know, the whole nobody-gets-until-they-get-it kind of thing. Here are some spoonie problems I deal with.

1. Taking pill medications with liquid medication.

2. Being able to swallow a large amount of pills with a small sip of liquid.

3. Having the pharmacist give me my meds without saying anything or having to look me up.

4. Hospital staff having my wristband ready freakishly fast because they see me so often.

5. Walking the fine line between needing painkillers and needing them too much.

6. Getting so tired after a shower that I need a nap and feel like a truck backed over me. A kind of tired healthy people don’t think exists.

7. Hurting so badly that I can’t decide which body part to use the heating pad on.

8. Making a heating pad comfortable on awkward places on my body.

9. Having all my frozen food taste funny because it’s been thawed and refrozen too much because I used it all as ice packs.

10. Trying to figure out how to treat one chronic illness without angering one of the others.

These are just some of the problems I face in dealing with my chronic health issues. Please tell me yours. And please don’t forget that chronic illness gives us the unique chance to be kinder and more compassionate than the average person.

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