Don’t put limitations on yourself with chronic illness
Living with a chronic illness means that we have decision after decision we need to make. These decisions can be how to manager our health, when to see a doctor, if we need to go to the hospital, or a surgery we’re contemplating. With some of these decisions, come consequences, or at least they do in our mind.
When we think about these “consequences” we generally believe that they come with baggage. And this baggage generally means that we put limitations on ourselves. These limitations can be mental or physical. I’ll give you an example with a short story.
Leading up to my ostomy surgery, all I could think about was how my life would be changing forever. That my body wouldn’t be capable of even coming close to doing the activities that I loved. Skiing, climbing, and more would be off the table.
This saddened me, because I put limitations on myself before my journey even began.
Then I began steps to learn more, to understand what would be happening, to choose that I didn’t want life to be limited. I wanted live my life my way and that wouldn’t be dictated by my ostomy. I reached out to those I was introduced to with an ostomy, I talked to Rob Hill who climbed the 7 Summits of the World with an ostomy. I started to have confidence that things would be okay.
Before I knew it the surgery was here. I was about to go to sleep, and when I woke up life would be completely different, or so I thought. When I woke up with my stoma and began my life with an ostomy, it was a shock to my system. On top of this, I was told I wouldn’t be able to do core exercises with a stoma and more by nurses and others in the hospital.
Seven months later I was flying across the country with Team Challenge for the Crohn’s Colitis Foundation and about to complete my first endurance event, a 13.1 mile half marathon from Napa to Sonoma. I basically wanted to give those that told me I couldn’t a HUGE middle finger.
Now when I did this, I didn’t realize what I did. Looking back now it was probably the best decision I could have ever made. By completing such a feat just a few short months after my ostomy, I blew the limitations others put on me away. There was no longer a roof on what could be done and the challenges that could be taken.
That’s the short version of the much longer story, but I started this new chapter the way I wanted to. I decided what would be my limitations or in this instance what limitations I wouldn’t accept.
Obviously there are decisions we all need to make dependent on our chronic illness and how we’re able to approach what we’re going through. But the moral of the story is that people will put limitations, but unless they’ve lived through exactly what you’re going through, DON’T BELIEVE THEM!
Talking to another ostomate like Rob Hill gave me true perspective by someone who went through what I was about to, and did what he could to overcome the similar challenges I’d face. And I can venture a guess that with most chronic illnesses, there are people out there who have done miraculous things despite the challenges they’ve faced.
They’ve started those “limitations” in the face and made the decision on how to write the next chapter in life.
