I woke up. Took a shower, and then I laid back down wrapped up in my towel. In fetal position. My guts hurt and I didn’t think I was ready to face the day. But I had to get up. I had to get my boys ready. I wanted to call in to work but I only had two shifts left. I took a moment then I got myself dressed. Because that’s what you do when you’re a mom. You have jobs, responsibilities and dependents. Even when you have a disease that lately keeps competing with your favorite interruptions in life, your kids.

So you get up. Get moving. Think positive. Keep the faith. You fight harder. You push back. You breathe deeply. You remind yourself how powerful your thinking is. And you tell yourself that you can do it. Then, you believe it. You pray and ask, or is it demand, for God’s help. You need his strength to jump start yours. Then, you take a moment to curse the disease. You may even irrationally tell it that you hate it and you don’t want it anymore. It’s not like you are childhood best friends or anything. You know it’s a bit absurd. As if you could just return it to the chronic illness store, at this point in your life. You’ve had it too long. No exchanges or returns. Sorry.

Some days, you’re painfully aware. Like the moments when you look down in the shower. This amazing life preserving sort of gift of your small intestine coming out of your body. It’s beautiful and visible and life changing. You recognize and appreciate the lessons that having the disease has taught you. The silly unimportant things it has freed you from, in order to help you focus in on the ones that matter. The gentle touch of strangers doing their job, taking care of you, getting you warm blankets. Because you drove to the ER alone. In the middle of the night. It’s what you needed to do and your husband needed to stay with the sleeping boys. Thankfully there are the kind hearted, the compassionate, the ones who don’t know you but they see you vulnerable, hurting and they tend to you like their own. They touch your shoulder, speak gently and tell you they love your name. The nurses.

Other days, you’re just so damn tired. More like utterly exhausted. From life. And you feel like the disease is the heavy weight champion and you’re curled up in the corner of the ring with your head in between your legs and your eyes are shut so tightly. Just. Go. Away. Leave me alone, will you? Please. You beg. And plead.

It’s the worst listener.

It’s really a great big juggling act balancing all the present thoughts, feelings, pain, anticipation and previous medical experiences. Then, there’s the future. What are your options? Will this be the thing that kills you? Should you ever go to that land of unknowns? Probably not. Just stay where you are. You stay positive and present with the many, many painful experiences you’ve had before. You let gratefulness fill you up and smother the little flames of pity, fear and shame. You know that you’re not as bad off as you have been before. You’re hopeful that like all the other times, you will make it through this valley filled with it’s fair share of obstacles. You will always, always learn something that’s bigger and better than the pain. And soon, you will look back once again to realize that it wasn’t ever your strength so much as it was the overwhelming and never ending strength, love, and support of those surrounding you, encouraging you and helping you. You will never ever forget the friend who picked you up on the curb. And drove your tired body home and acted like you gave her the greatest birthday gift in letting her help you. You will always remember her. You will remember that love wins. Every time.

You know that when you get to feeling better you will do everything possible to show others this kind of readily available, self sacrificing, beautiful and rare kind of love. Because you believe that it’s not fair, every person deserves to feel this kind of love. Not just you.