Tuesday, January 3, 2012

I am thankful for: a pain free life


I'm not sure where this blogging is going because I feel like I'm tackling such «big issues» right away and I guess by the time I get to mid-March all I will have left to be thankful for is the milk not having expired or the sun rising 3 minutes earlier than the day before... 

But today I have another big reason to be thankful. I had some «stomach issues» last night and they have persisted until today. Nothing serious, I get these kinds of rather unpleasant digestion problems (if that's what they are) once in a while, but this bout has made me very thankful for one thing: for those who don't now (really, there are people who don't know??) I was born with a rather serious heart malformation*, and I've had chronic and serious migraines since the age of 13. 

However, my heart has seldom caused physical pain, and my migraines are now dealt with with a preventative method so that at most I get a manageable headache once in a while. This means that although I «suffer» from two rather big health issues, I am, almost all the time, pain free. This is something that cannot be underestimated. People with much less «serious» (I have trouble calling a painful condition «not serious», but I mean in the sense that it effects the overall physical state) conditions live with a lot more pain. Take untreated migraines, back pain, joint pain and whatever other painful things our body can put us through. I have none of these and I am so thankful for that. 

Yes I'm tired, yes I get sore faster, yes I have to take pills to prevent migraines, but at the end of the day I spend 99% of my days totally pain free and that is a wonderful thing. 


*I am always annoyed when I read these kinds of statements with no explanation (as with most things, it's relative) so here is the technical description for those interested:  Single ventricle (hypoplastic right heart syndrome), transposition of the great arteries, pulmonary stenosis.  I had a BT shunt at 9 months and a Fontan at 10 years.

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