Best 129 quotes in «chronic illness quotes» category

And all my ethical reasoning crumbles to ash in the sheer fact of his presence. Because together, even in darkness, we light up a room; because the clotted guilt inside me breaks up and disperses before a surge of stupid happiness; because I love him, and I know I cannot leave him, am incapable of leaving him, unless he asks me to go. And he has not asked me. And that is the miracle which I live with, every day.

Ache my bones, flame my muscles, tingle my nerves, but you will never taint my beautiful mind & I will overcome this condition with the belief that I already have. - CRPS AWARENESS -

All parents set out with expectations, hopes and dreams for their child. When a child is diagnosed with a health problem, these aspirations are altered. While one parent is hoping to see their child graduate from university, another is praying that they can live pain free

An hour seldom passed in which she didn’t either sneeze, pick her nose, or wipe a bogie onto her snot-encrusted sleeve. But she had such a lovely colour. That pink glow which comes with the flu used to engulf her like an aura. It suited her. She always looked so damn effervescent.

And now he had acquired the wisdom to admit that sometimes experienced his disdain for “weak, sick people” because he was frightened by any suggestion he could ever become that.

Appearing nude on film was not easy when I was twenty-six in Body Heat; it was even harder when I was forty-six in The Graduate, on the stage, which is more up close and personal than film. After my middle-age nude scene, though, I unexpectedly got letters from women saying, "I have not undressed in front of my husband in ten years and I'm going to tonight." Or, "I have not looked in the mirror at my body and you gave me permission." These affirmations from other women were especially touching to me because when I began The Graduate I'd just come through a period when I felt a great loss of confidence, when my rheumatoid arthritis hit me hard and I literally couldn't walk or do any of the things that I was so used to doing. It used to be that if I said to my body, "Leap across the room now," it would leap instantly. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. I hadn't realized how much my confidence was based on my physicality. On my ability to make my body do whatever I wanted it to do. I was so consumed, not just by thinking about what I could and couldn't do, but also by handling the pain, the continual, chronic pain. I didn't realize how pain colored my whole world and how depressive it was. Before I was finally able to control my RA with proper medications, I truly had thought that my attractiveness and my ability to be attractive to men was gone, was lost. So for me to come back and do The Graduate was an affirmation to myself. I had my body back. I was back.

Armed with my positive attitude and inherent stubborn nature, I keep my mind focused and my life moving forward. I stop to rest, pout and even cry sometimes, but always, I get back up. Life is giving me this challenge and I will plow through it, out of breath with my heart racing if I have to.

As I sat up I turned my head to the side, but immediately straightened it again when I felt a sharp pain shoot through my neck.

And the deal with so many chronic illnesses is that most people won't want to believe you. They will tell you that you look great, that it might be in your head only, that it is likely stress, that everything is okay. None of these are the right things to say to someone whose entire existence is a fairly consistent torture of the body and mind. They say it because they are well-intentioned usually, because they wish you the best, but they also say it because you make them uncomfortable. Your existence is evidence of death. . . .

As with many life-altering events, an autoimmune illness is almost guaranteed to cause you to re-evaluate your priorities.

Because doctors can’t name the illness, everyone—the patient's family, friends, health insurance, and in many cases the patient—comes to think of the patient as not really sick and not really suffering. What the patient comes to require in these circumstances, in the absence of help, are facts—tests and studies that show that they might “in fact” have something.

Before I knew it, I was once again being whisked down the hallways at the new hospital into an even bigger room, one that, unbeknownst to me, would be my home for what would feel like a long, long time.

Before I knew it, I was racing across the highway. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to think.

Behind every stressful thought is the desire for things to be other than they are.

Being an Author who writes and advocates about tough things people go through in life; the Holy Spirit encourages me to encourage all people to be persevering in-spite of whatever hardships they are going through, or whatever horror they feel they are facing in their lives

But maybe I could give myself something too—permission to keep trying. Even when it felt like it was all for nothing. Even if trying was all I ever did, I shouldn’t stop.

By staying, by shirking the responsibility and effort of leaving, by continuing to occupy this lovely man while giving him neither children nor a public companion nor a welcoming home-do I do wrong?

By taking the time to focus on our mental and emotional well-being, we can minimize our triggers and reduce the likelihood of a recurrence.

CFS IS A MISLEADING LABEL Many argue that the label "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" contributes to the disorder's lack of legitimacy because it emphasizes only one symptom "fatigue," which is such a common and non-specific symptom. The name fails to convey that the mental and physical fatigue in CFS are not substantially relieved by rest nor that exertion worsens symptoms. The lack of mention of physical signs and symptoms in the label allows the inclusion of a very heterogeneous group of less severely ill patients to be considered under the rubric of CFS. As a result many research hypotheses and findings may not pertain to patients with tightly defined CFS who have multisystemic involvement.

Courage wasn't only fighting your circumstances; sometimes making peace with your circumstances required more courage.

Dani’s mild eating disorder was definitely the most annoying thing about her. One Christmas break I’d gained ten pounds and went up two cup-sizes—a post episode binge that finally made me look normal, like a woman. I would have killed to hold onto that version of me and all Dani did was count calories and complain about her non-existent cellulite. She was lucky. Most people were, they just couldn’t see it.

Depression affects almost 80% of migraine sufferers at one time or another. People with migraine, especially chronic migraine, also are more likely to experience intense anxiety and to have suicidal tendencies. If we want to live happy and joyful lives with migraine, it is vital that we acknowledge and deal with the emotional realities of the disease.

Each small accommodation of my physical environment is an admission that things are not improving, that this is not some fleeting horror, that perhaps...But that is the unthinkable thought.

Chronic illness is hard. Pain is hard. Isolation is hard. The financial cost is hard. Grieving is hard and necessary and sometimes takes far longer than we ever imagined.

Eighteen months ago, after seeing thirteen different doctors and undergoing multiple tests and investigations, not only was I given a diagnosis of a condition that I didn’t know about or understand, it was an illness I didn’t believe in.

Fatigue had started to set in...and now my eyes showed it as I struggled to keep them open.

Even the littlest things were now a challenge, one I didn't understand.

For ME patients, activity overreaching equals symptom exacerbation, including decreased functional capacity. It’s a predictable action and reaction that is borne out by numerous and replicated physiological studies. Given what we have learned in the past eight years about this illness, it is intellectually embarrassing to suggest that ME is a psychological illness.

Futility. Uselessness. Bloody entrophy. Death matters, at least sometimes.

Given what we have learned in the past eight years about this illness, it is intellectually embarrassing to suggest that ME is a psychological illness.

Having a chronic illness, Molly thought, was like being invaded. Her grandmother back in Michigan used to tell about the day one of their cows got loose and wandered into the parlor, and the awful time they had getting her out. That was exactly what Molly's arthritis was like: as if some big old cow had got into her house and wouldn't go away. It just sat there, taking up space in her life and making everything more difficult, mooing loudly from time to time and making cow pies, and all she could do really was edge around it and put up with it. When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense.

He said that my problem was that I was perfectly healthy and had the illusion that I would be able bodied forever. I could only begin understanding his problem if I gave up that illusion and that would be very difficult, given how healthy I was. I understand, I mistakenly said, and he said no you don’t.

He mistook my frustration for anger towards him, which seemed to be typical for us lately. The longer the distance between a correct diagnosis, the greater the silence we shared.

I am a person suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and I am appalled that it has been given such a trivial name. Here is a disease that totally disables most of its victims; a disease that causes balance disorders, resulting in some of us requiring wheelchairs, cognitive disorders that leave us unable to perform formerly simple mental tasks, and immune disorders that lay us open to multiple infections and to autoimmune problems. And all the medical profession can come up with to define this syndrome to the general population is "fatigue!

I am disabled but I'm not my disability. Disability is just a little piece of me but it is not my whole personality

Astray from a deep sleep chronic as I write by phonics, like insomnia I will always live the onyx night for revealing, and, upon it, still I'll steal the bright light of day right away just to keep building at speeds hypersonic.

I certainly don’t buy into the idea that positive attitudes can somehow mysteriously directly influence physical health outcomes.

I could feel the bite of the autumn air, warning us all of the harsh winter that was on its way.

I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace.

I didn't want this man touching me in those places. It wasn't that he was being inappropriate, it was just more that he obviously didn't view me as a person, let alone a scared person with actual feelings. He just saw me as yet another scientific specimen there for his own experimenting. I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing the entire time.

I felt entirely invisible and uncomfortably obvious all at the same time, sitting there in practically nothing in front of this stranger who was ignoring me.

If I have found promise, it is because I’ve squeezed it from the seemingly impossible.

I guess it's human nature to question yourself, to question why all the pain has had to happen? sometimes there isn't any answers it just is what it is and how we make ourselves feel and see through that, is what will determine how we move forward.

If I had to pull an all-nighter studying for a test or too many looming deadlines had me pulling out my hair, I wouldn’t end up with just some trendy coffee addiction. I’d end up in a mini-coma, face down in the middle of the studio or on the floor of the community showers.

I had learned quickly that life doesn't always go the way I want it to, and that's okay. I still plod on.

I’m in a caregiver's relationship with my body, a perpetual internal gauging of wellness. My spine is Hogarth’s thermometer. I ascend and descend its rungs a hundred times a day, reading the mercury level. The same dis-ease speaks many languages. If you block one mouth, another will speak. The symptoms represent differently, and as I get older, my translation changes. The prescription changes. Must be vigilant. Must be my best nurse.

I hated that the greatest enemy of my lifetime... was also my truest love.

I have a wild spirit and a less abled body, experiences don’t match up sometimes but I like to think I aspire to live large despite my limitations, out of my control.

I hope in the next world I shall be at ease, but in this I find I must not expect it long together.

I’m really tired”, you come to understand, is meaningless, giving the impression all will be well with a good rest and that if you’ve ever been tired, you know what it is to be exhausted.