Chronic Babies

 People that are health absolutely don’t and can’t understand exactly what that means, but we in the world of the sick do. They don’t understand what feeling like you have the flu non stop for years on end feels like. Or when you get up in the morning you feel so bad and unrested you must sit down a while just to gather yourself to get ready, not for the day, just to get ready after which you need to rest for a bit again.

 Most of us, the sick go about life much as a normal person, mainly because it is our normal. Unless you are close to us you won’t notice, we are the best actors in the world. We wait until we can turn our head to grimace from pain, we dash into a rest room or closet if things get too much. If the sick person is like me, I have inflammatory bowel disease, ie. Crohn’s, you may see me run to the loo a lot or god forbid (and it happens) hanging out my car door or over a trash can puking, fun and very embarrassing stuff.

 This blog post is not just an IBD post, it is a chronic illness post. So what exactly is a chronic illness? A chronic illness can be anything from auto immune, illness by something that happened, a script drug that a side affect wish missed, cancers, lupus, ulcerative colitis, PTSD, mental health, at any rate these are all horrible and incredibly hard to live with. I have 3, Crohn’s disease, ankylosing spondylitis, and a form of RA from the damage in my gut due to the CD. Then thing I really hope people can take away from this is the meaning of CHRONIC ILLNESS, which means it never goes away, lifelong. Sure there are times, I’m living proof, that do just like the normal, un-sick, however in these this it’s always right there and can strike any, I mean any second.

 There is something else we as the ill (I call my friends “Chronic Babies”) face and think allot about, or mortality. We have these secret groups on social media where there are thousands of Chronic Babies, we visit the daily to check on friends. Usually we find helpful info and neat pictures we can relate to and share. I generally share publicly as I try to raise awareness and funding to find a cure for my demon, IBD so sorry if you think I talk too much. Anyway, I jumped on a IBD group Sunday, the first post I read said “it’s with a heavy heart I come here to inform Tiffany,,,, a beautiful lady lost her fight with Crohns Disease yesterday.”. She is one of many in the past few months. It’s not necessary to know how, just she did and folks loose their battles again whether cancer, IBD, depression. It’s also necessary to know that people in our groups pass it scares the hell out of us, in ones mind which is racing when we read about death we are thinking that could be me

. Whatever the disorder it’s in our face none stop, non stop. So if you a lucky one, you need to know just how lucky you are.  If you know a person that is one of the sick, ask them to tell you about it, not the pills and doctors but what it is like to be them a chronically ill person. If you are a “Chronic Baby” like me, never, ever stop running your mouth about your illness in person, or publically on social media that’s the only hope for awareness and eventual cures for the sick. We deserve it.

I’m Josh, I’m a Chronic Baby, and I Am!!!