Telling The Story

How many times have you told your illness story?  If you’ve been a part of a support group the answer is too many times to count. If you haven’t you may have told the story to close friends, extended family, significant others, but every time you tell the story you need to think about how you feel about the story.\

Last night I began telling my story again after making a comment about going to get refills of my medication.  My story begins when I was twelve so I’ve been living with an autoimmune disease for many years.  The story had a different story this time because I was looking at it from the vantage point of feeling blessed.  I’m blessed because I have health insurance, and great health insurance at that.  If I didn’t have this insurance my life would be far less pleasant than it is.

There is a discrepancy in this country when it comes to health care.  The treatments I receive are very expensive if I were paying out of pocket.  I have a physician who monitors me closely and we always discuss new treatment options as they become available.  If I didn’t have health insurance I’d be a mess.  I’d be totally disabled.  If I had mediocre health insurance I’d have to make choices between treatment food, gas and treatment.  I’m not sure what type of treatments I’d receive if I had federal health insurance such as Medicaid.

I’m sharing this with you because telling the story this time brought up feelings of relief and gratitude, not something you hear about often when discussing illness.  I have the opportunity every day to live my without too many interruptions.  I know that all treatments have long term effects, but today I’m feeling great.

I realize now that it’s important for me to tell my story on a regular basis.  I take away different lessons each time and that promotes my own wellness.  If gives me physical and spiritual stamina which all of us facing an illness need to develop for our journey to wellness.