concise words don’t come
complexity in breathing
overshadowing
—
everyday choices
move us toward who we are
closer everyday
—
health is a journey
not limited to disease
it is time to move.
—
hope extends forward
a community that grows
inspire together
![two silhouettes jumping against gradient purple to orange sky in mid-air with arms extended :]](https://i0.wp.com/kerriontheprairies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/jump..png?resize=600%2C398 "jump..png")
(image Credit: The Rhodesian]
just because you’re present doesn’t mean that you’re here . . . rise above it.
rise above it, switchfoot
With any sort of chronic disease, it’s all too easy to feel trapped by your own body. Like I’ve said before, it’s perspective . . . and perspective can be changed, but that sometimes doesn’t make it any easier to do. And the thing is, much as I’d like to–as easy as it might be–to separate my asthma-life from my other-life, it’s just not possible or smart. Ignoring it doesn’t push it farther away, and running from it just makes it harder to breathe.
As I was writing this, this quote from Tiffany popped up in Twitter.
I learned something on my journey through life. That I was the one preventing myself from moving forward. My past plagued my thoughts 24/7
I’ve been there. Sometimes I’m still there. And this, this isn’t freedom. And neither is the fact that in past years I’ve spent too many minutes fixated on where I thought I was stuck because of the fact that I had a chronic illness, instead of rising above it, kicking my own ass, and trying to work at “changing the standard of thinking“, as Jesse Petersen says.
And what does it come down to? Does it come down sitting in a ball, curled up and preventing yourself from shining . . . or does it come to freeing yourself?
I want to be a part of the picture above. Freeing myself to do whatever I want in spite of my disease while being responsible about it. This is what it means to live in the moment, and take advantage of the only thing I am immediately in control of: right now. Because asthma, or any other disease, throws in a bunch of variables that are often unpredictable. This week, on Saturday and Sunday I felt perfectly fine, Monday and Tuesday i started going downhill, and Wednesday I couldn’t even breathe well enough to go to work. Tomorrow, or how good I’ll feel tomorrow, is never a guarantee. For anybody, but it’s amplified if you live with a chronic disease. I’m not trying to be morbid, just realistic. And I would surely rather be realistic and jumping into the dusky sky than I would either living with regrets of staring at barriers instead of climbing over them or in an emergency room because I’m not taking care of myself.
And that’s a choice. A choice to coexist, but not be limited by my disease.
I would rather make the choice to lift my hands to the sky, jump, shine . . .
And rise above it.
I think why I health blog is too mangled and twisted and big of a story, one that is better suited for a Starbucks with iced white mochas in hand. Regardless, let’s try it here, without the ambience and white mochas. Even though Starbucks would be much more fun.
The time my actual blogging started was probably over five years ago. Since then I’ve had countless blogs with varying focuses, and finally, ended up here, with a .com address to my [user]name (which was thought up by my amazing friend Danielle on a joint blog we had together at one point). So the original reason I started blogging is a mystery, maybe it is because that is what all the cool kids were doing? [Lies, actually. I’ve always been immersed in social media, and few of my real-life friends could care less about blogging].
Health blogging, and becoming a health blogger, started quite by accident. Asthma was my initial focus in health blogging, because getting thrown a chronic disease at almost-seventeen is, you know, crazy. One day I could breathe, the next day I was at my old school for a choir event and the whole breathing thing was not so easy. And then it took months to actually BE diagnosed because I didn’t have a doctor.
Almost-seventeen year olds typically think they are invincible, and to suddenly realize you’re not is hard.
I always say though, if I didn’t get asthma, I probably would still be sitting on my ass. And not doing this. This blogging thing. This kinesiology thing. This:
So why do I blog about my health?
Because one in ten Canadians has asthma, but nobody talks about it. A tenth of the population has an incurable lung disease, but it’s been passed off as so common, so normal, for so long that people think it doesn’t matter.
Seven words: It’s not normal to have trouble breathing. And to think anything less is absolute bullshit. No matter how common asthma is.
And at the same time, just because it’s normal to society, it’s not usable in the excuses that people try to make. My friends Natasha and Elisheva? They ran a 10K last weekend, inhalers in hand, to support an Israeli asthma organization. My friend Steve has walked three Boston Marathons with 34% of his lungs because his past and this stupid disease has destroyed them. One by one, we are changing the standard of thinking around physical activity and asthma. Because perspective and physical activity . . . even if you’ve got a chronic disease . . . are choices.
This is why I make the choice to health blog. To reinforce to myself the choices that I make on a personal level, and hope that others who read this realize that life is about choice, even with chronic disease in the mix. Choice to do Good Things, whether that is for my body or my feelings or my mind or my heart . . . or my community.
Asthma may be a speedbump, but it is never a roadblock. I may have to choose a different route to get where I’m going. I may have to take some time off training for an exacerbation. I may have to modify how I do something . . . but can’t isn’t an option.
That message, and the next, which I’ve used in a #hawmc post already, are why I health blog. I health blog because
Perspective is crucial, positivity is essential, and ignorance is a curable disease.
Teleportation. Christina at Mom of 2 Type 1s actually blogged about it this morning. And I guess I am still in that college stage she was in where teleportation would be the most badass thing ever.
Without the online health community, I probably wouldn’t really care about having the ability to teleport. Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, and I would love to take those steps out of travelling. Just think, if I were able to teleport, I would be able to not even pack, not pay for hotels, and travel the world for a couple hours at a time then pop back home to go to bed! But without the online health community, all of you who have because of the internet become my amazing friends, I wouldn’t even care. Travelling would be cool, but I like the people the best. I like the memories of meeting up with Rona, of meeting up with Dia when she was here. Of the thought I’ll probably get to hang out with Danielle for a bit in a few weeks when I’m in her city, and hopefully have a #KerriPower meet up in May when Kerri is in the city.
This . . . to be able to have these random meet-ups all the time would be awesome. To be able to see, face-to-face, the people who understand you the best, not only because they share your health condition, but they understand the ins and outs of it, and how it actually intertwines with your life. . . would be amazing. To be able to suddenly pop up and see Natasha or Elisheva [or any of my overseas friends] all the way across the ocean whenever we felt like it, whenever someone needed some rant-time or just to hang out, would be so awesome.
So teleporting? I would be all over that. Meet-ups EVERYWHERE!
[Or, if not teleportation, I will totally accept an airline sponsor if I have any takers. AirCanada? WestJet? I can give you my whole pitch about the power of community and supporting people with chronic disease through education, empowerment, physical activity and relationship-building!]
As irony would have it, I connected with Catherine from A Diabetic Ballerina again yesterday–she retweeted my #hawmc post right after my mom e-mailed me that she had printed the tagline from Catherine’s blog and put it on her wall at work after reading it in my e-mail signature. So good. Today, being quotation inspiration day, and Mirror Mantra Monday (hi Mike!), in searching for a quote, I decided what better to use than one of my ultimate favourites–one belonging to Catherine! Canadians unite!
There are so many Good Things here on so many levels. Here goes.
We are here to have impact. We are here to change ourselves . . . and in turn, live with the hope that we will change the world one person at a time. Run at life full force, whether that is a physical run or a metaphorical run. Go at it. Get it. And don’t let it get away.
Movement is something that has become increasingly important to me over the last few years. “Love is a movement.” [–Switchfoot]. Connection is a movement, a daring to step beyond our own personal bubbles that far too many people seem completely okay being smothered inside. Movement is spreading our metaphorical wings to experience what we never dreamed we would become or become capable of. Movement is that desire to own your life. And if you, like me, and like Catherine, live with a chronic disease . . . then owning your disease is a huge part of owning your life. Owning the choices you make. Each choice is a decision to move, and each decision to move is a choice . . . it can be cyclical. Whether it is cyclical for the better, or the worse is a choice . . . and I hope to see the cycle, the ripple effect, be for the better.
The most literal form of the word is the one that has gained the most importance to me personally on in the last year. The movement that I choose to make physically, and the movement I hope to instil in others. And the sharing, the rippling, of this type of movement in our world. Physical activity and exercise . . . it is a choice, and it too, is cyclical. There is no such thing as can’t, and each step forward, each movement, is an impact on health and wellbeing for the better. The movement in my classes to create a movement towards movement. The movement of the kids at work as they experience something new that they are capable of, something that they are able to accomplish while improving their health and having fun. The movement of changing the thoughts from negative to positive, and still underscoring fun.
The movement of dance–the movement of my body connected with my spirit, emotions, environment all moving, melting into one moment, one movement.
The movement to change. To reach out to touch people through whatever means possible. Making an impact on our world. Stepping beyond the invisible comfort zone. Living in each moment in movement, not in stillness, in loudness, not in silence, in passion, not in regret. So that when we’re dead . . . they’ll know we’ve been here.
Own it. And GO. Move.