{"id":1800,"date":"2010-09-14T11:31:36","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T18:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2012-08-03T09:05:26","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T16:05:26","slug":"invisible-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=1800","title":{"rendered":"Invisible Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I was taken aback to see my POTS peeps posts about Invisible Illness Week.\u00a0 Had it been a full year since I wrote my last notes about when internal experience does not match external appearance<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Indeed it seems unfathomable that it has been three years since I had to leave my career.\u00a0 Even my youngest child is in high-school this Fall.\u00a0 Impossible!\u00a0 I think to myself.\u00a0 But the truth is, time does pass … even when it does not heal<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 And that is perhaps the hardest part for me of living with a life limiting illness.\u00a0 The sun continues to rise each day, the seasons seem to blur one into the other.\u00a0 But that spark of hope that many of us in our youth had cling to that one day we would be restored to a vitality that we can now barely even remember is but a dim and distant star in a galaxy light-years now removed from our night sky.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And while I do believe that anything is possible, the reality for me is that in practical terms this is what my life is about, for now and likely the long haul.\u00a0 There is no waiting to recover but rather grasping opportunities<\/em> when windows open for even glimpses of time that I may go play lightly in the world of the walking.\u00a0 A special trip to the card shop to pick up a gift for my husband and daughter.\u00a0 A difficult ride out to get frozen yogurt with my family.\u00a0 A wheel<\/em> around the block with my kids laughing as they pretend to let my chair roll down a steep hill in the dark of night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I do wish there was more than just the simple BBQ in the backyard to celebrate our summer together.\u00a0 But I realize deeply that what we do have by way of love and laughter — not to mention an occasional soul train line in the kitchen after the dinner dishes have been washed — is in itself a priceless gift and a family memory that will forever remain in all of our hearts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So on invisible illness week, I would like to embrace the notion of having it all<\/em>.\u00a0 Which for me, allows time to reflect on the sadness of a life and dreams that are lost but also to remember that pain and suffering are not a two-for-one deal<\/em><\/strong> and that happiness can be found in the stillness of a single breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was taken aback to see my POTS peeps posts about Invisible Illness Week.\u00a0 Had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}