recovery is possible

Hello friends!

Did you think I'd abandoned this blog altogether?  Well, I don't post anymore and just happened to take a look today.  I noticed that we do have another update - a happy one.

According to my last post in 2010, I reported that Jessie was doing great, was schooling from home, and was still on her medication.

Now, after seven years of CFIDS...

Jes is completely off of any and all medication.  Seriously, I can't get the girl to take a gummy vitamin.

She finished high school at home through Keystone.  She was only one semester behind which, I'm very sorry to say wasn't illness related.  Seems we can blame that on the fact that Jessie was suddenly free from the constraints of scheduled curriculum as well as the fact that the final Harry Potter book was published.  Naturally, she felt the need to secretly take a semester off to re-read the entire series.  Ahem...moving along...

I'm happy to say that she now lives a totally normal life, is attending Kennesaw State University on a full academic scholarship (my thanks to Harry Potter), babysits regularly, works out (almost) every day, and rarely slows down.  Except for the fact that she's gluten-free, Jes is a normal 19 year old young lady - something I feared we would never see again.

After experiencing seemingly every avenue of the medical profession, Jes has decided to become a pediatrician.  Really.

I think about many of you often, knowing that the same outcome is possible for you.  Don't forget it.  Ever.

Until next time.

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An Update

Good Lord - I haven't posted since May. For shame. For shame.

Thought I'd add a little update and let you know that I still lurk around here and there. Personally, work is keeping me busy, especially at this time of year. Seriously, I was thinking about Christmas in September. Sick.

I'm happy to report that in terms of CFIDS, Jes is doing well. She's still on her regular medication and we continue to try to whittle away a bit of it. For now, we're trying to rid our lives of the Lyrica.

She continues to have occasional migraines. BUT she hasn't had to take the heavy duty medication OR visit the ER in over a year. That's improvement people. If she gets a migraine, she can usually sleep it off.

Aside from that, she has a boyfriend, runs around constantly, drives her parents nuts, is finishing her senior year at home, and just took the SAT.

I'm saying this because there is hope.

ALWAYS hope.

Now I'm going to throw something in your general direction. If you are home bound and/or chronically sick, helping others always seems to lift the spirits. Heck, it lifts the spirits whether you're sick or healthy. Unfortunately it's hard to do when you're confined much of the time. This is an alternative you should look into. I've recently become involved with a group called:

ItStartsWith.Us

Visit this site. They're better at getting the point across, so I will leave it at that. Learn about dropping love bombs. It'll do your heart good to so easily make someone's day brighter.

Until next time, you're always in my thoughts and prayers.

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is it possible?

Is it possible that she will be one of the lucky ones? When I talk to people about her illness, which is pretty rare these days, I always add that she is one of the lucky ones. Relatively speaking, things are going extremely well. Her life is practically normal given the fact that she no longer attends regular school and is highly medicated. I really can't and won't complain. She is unbelievably social - so much so that I lose sleep, so I guess we're normal! We're counting our blessings and, as always, remaining hopeful.

and speaking of being medicated...

See the highly medicated box? I almost bought this for her yesterday but didn't for only one reason. You may think that the reason is that it's kinda, sorta odd to put a pillbox holder that is sparkly and has "highly medicated" written across the top into the hands of a 17 year old. Well, that's not the reason. I didn't buy it because it was $29.00. $29.00! Anyway, it was sized perfectly - large enough compartments to hold her pills, a.m. and p.m., AND the best thing (aside from the fact that it was kind of cute) was that it was small, about 5-6 inches by 4 inches, zipped closed and housed a perfectly sized pillbox for traveling. Call me crazy, but I loved it. (I'm going to have to figure out how to make one of those suckers.)

So, for the medication. Believe it or not, we FINALLY weaned her off of her morning dose of Lyrica. Hooray! It only took five months, but it finally took. She's now on Lyrica at night, 25 mg. She still takes the Pamelor, 50 mg at night, Florinef twice a day, and a multitude of supplements. Dropping that Lyrica was a milestone. No more splitting capsules - Yay!

I sincerely think of you all often and hope you're enjoying life.

Stay happy and full of hope. Until next time.

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just in case you needed a laugh

Hope your Sunday is beautiful.

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Here We Are

Well friends, here we are. I've reached a conclusion and am ready to admit that I need to take a break from writing (or feeling guilty for NOT writing) here at Living Chronically. Lately, Jessie has been blessed with wonderful health. We are so thrilled and hopeful.

Here at LC, I feel as though it's a little silly to give updates for someone who is well. This blog will still be here because I love reading about and staying in touch with all the wonderful friends I've "met" over the past two years. So I'll be checking my blogroll daily and staying in touch.

Please stay around, too. I will be giving updates from time to time. But it's kind of like when you leave the doctor and say, "Hope I don't see you any time soon, doc!" Know what I mean?

Until then, here's hoping I don't have any updates to report. Take care. :)

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Hello Friends

Just a quick hello. Jes and I returned last night from a weekend visit to my mom's. We had a great time, eating strawberries and chocolate, watching movies (such as the one above), lunching, and even a little shoe shopping - pretty nice, huh?

Jessie is doing well. On the way back last yesterday, we stopped off at the BCBG outlet to shop for a prom dress. What felt like 50+ dresses and no decision. I think she gets her decision-making ability from her mom - poor thing. She's been living so "normally" lately that we're able to enjoy extended time out as long as we bring along salty, gluten-free treats.

We found little snack bags of salty peanuts at Sam's - perfect to keep in the purse. The small bottles of Powerade also tend to tag along as well as Kind bars (fruit and nut are SO good).

If you have orthostatic intolerance, what do you like to take along as your safety net?

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Well Said - My Favorite Word...

Well said.

If you can't trust a fortune cookie, now what can you trust?

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