One of the hardest things for me to overcome isn’t the acceptance that I am sick.

I wake up every morning knowing I’m sick – the pain reminds me, the fatigue and weakness remind me, the numbness and tingling and nausea remind me. Yes, I accept that I’m sick.

I put my feet on the floor every morning to the feeling of a thousand needles piercing the soles of my feet. Ice pick type pain stabs my head, razor blade pain slices my arms and thighs. My bones feel broken, the skin on the tops of my feet feel like a blow torch is rolling over them.

Yes – I accept that I’m sick.

The thing I struggle with is the acceptance that I may not get well, the acceptance that this may be it, this may be as well as I get.

I’m grateful this morning that I’m not throwing up or curled up in the fetal position crying in pain. But I’m also frustrated that I wasn’t able to get up and go to yard sales with my daughter or to Home Depot with my husband.

Every so often I have to fill out a form that asks what hobbies or jobs does this sickness keep me from doing. I always wrote kayaking and hiking and driving long distances. But that’s not accurate – yes, it does keep me from doing those, but it also keeps me from doing basic things like laundry and dishes and grocery shopping. Some days I am too sick to shower or even eat.

Those are the things I seem to be unwilling to accept – the loss of daily living.

It makes me angry to think this is as good as it gets – so I don’t think that, I refuse to accept that.

And I fight – I research, I study, I try different therapies and remedies.

But here’s what I realized about acceptance this morning – if I don’t accept the real severity of this sickness, if I don’t acknowledge the details of how limiting it is, I won’t fight the right way.

Acceptance isn’t failure. Acceptance helps you see what really needs to be done. It doesn’t mean you give up – it doesn’t mean you don’t have hope.

It means you know your body and you respect yourself enough to do what needs to be done.

You may have heard me call it optimistic realism – look for the positive but accept reality. That’s a hard thing to balance, especially when reality changes every day.

Today – my reality is filled pain and weakness and a lot of rest.

But today I also choose to see the good things that surround me and look for hope where I can’t see it.

#itsnotoveryet