On a couple different occasions people have told me I talk about my illnesses too much..

 

We need to go back, to a moment….

When was the first time you heard about autism? How did you learn about peanut allergies? What was the first time you knew what Crohn’s disease was? What about cancer?? ….. Who told you these things? And if you say you read it on the Internet..

Then someone had to talk about it for you to read it.. Someone had to write the words you wrote. Someone had to discuss what was going on inside their own body or someone close to them..

 

These things NEED to be talked about, how many life have been saved since people started talking about breast cancer? How many earlier screens have saved a life? How many people have known the symptoms of meningitis and knew when to go get help? How do you know to go to the doctor when you have the flu? Because you knew what to watch for…

 

Someone has to talk about these things for you to understand them…

People don’t know normally what is Gastroparesis is or what it’s like having 9 food allergies let alone 40 food allergies.. And the only way we can find a cure the only way we can get better is… By talking about it..

 

And on the other hand.. When I do everything throughout the day I must think.. Is this food safe? Did I touch something? Did I get up too fast? Am I having an allergic reaction? Is my headache my normal headache or something more?

 

My body is failing me, I can’t go throughout a day without thinking about it.. I am not talking about my illnesses because I’m bored or have nothing else going on but because no matter what I do no matter how I handle my life. My illnesses control part of it. I must think about it because if I don’t.. I could kill myself. If I touched a walnut if I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating, if I didn’t watch what I was doing. I could hurt even kill myself…

 

My illnesses don’t take breaks, my illnesses don’t take days off, my illnesses don’t get magically better with medicine.. My illnesses without meaning to have to control part of what I do because I am living in a body that is broken but no way to fix it…

So yes I talk about my illnesses a lot yes this is part of my life on a daily basis if I didn’t talk about it you wouldn’t know what it was or what I was going through. You wouldn’t understand how easily a peanut can kill me or corn, a tree nut, or even some food that I didn’t crew well… Something could kill me easily and by talking about it it could save me…

There is this part of me that wants you to know that the main reason I talk about it, is because if we don’t talk about it because if we say nothing then nothing will change.. We won’t get treatment… we won’t get a cure.. We won’t get better life because no one will be doing research about what’s going on inside our bodies.

We not only need awareness we need understanding… We need help, because we need people to understand give us as much awareness as possible because then maybe we could save another life from pain and from being without a diagnoses and without help… Because people with chronic illnesses, rare diseases can go years in horrid pain without a diagnosis without any help, and without understanding…

 

So thankfully we have people who talk about rare diseases, chronic illnesses because maybe one day when I say I have EoE people will have as much understanding as they do for when someone says they have cancer..

I didn’t choose to get a rare disease I just got a few… So if I don’t talk about my rare disease no one will know..

 

So yes my diseases are sometimes the highlight of my life but it’s because it affects my life in every way…

Thanks for reading about my talking about my illnesses, diseases can be invisible, which is why they are called invisible illnesses, we must first understand that awareness is the key..

 

If you want to talk about this more with me, leave a comment or email me, we can discuss the horridness of chronic and rare diseases,

 

Shayweasel out…