I was relieved that I had a name to put to the painful syndrome that sucked the life out of me and added to my woes as a sufferer of angina, arthritis and back pain. And polymyalgia rheumatica thrown into the mix.
It made sense that with all these ailments, I would be finding it more difficult, or even impossible to do the chores that after a lifetime of being a wife and mother, were familiar and regular as the rising and setting of the sun.
With the newest diagnosis, came a depression because not only was I totally frustrated with having to constantly adjust to my new normal, but I was not afforded much compassion or understanding from others.
It was intimated, but not said, that I was lazy and using ill health as an excuse to be lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was laid low emotionally as well as physically.
These days, it is rare to find someone who is compassionate for the chronically ill and/or aged. And it compounds the frustration and anger one can feel as one goes through the cycles of grief with a new diagnosis that limits one further.
I know a little understanding from others would go a long way to help me adjust and accept it every time I am faced with a new normal.
Sadly, not only do most people now not want to listen about chronic illness, but they don't want to know.
It's not a hard thing to commiserate with the trampled flower bowing under the weight of pain and illness and later, stigma.
We don't necessarily ask for help from others, but is a little compassion too much to ask for?
