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The Pain of New Year When Chronically Ill

The Pain of New Year When Chronically Ill

As the clock strikes midnight on the 1st January, it so heralds the beginning of a brand new year. A new year offers the chance for a blank slate, new beginnings and exciting prospects and opportunities. However, when living with a chronic illness, the start of a new year can give rise to pain and uncertainty. As January arrives, it is a time to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. And a new...

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2018: A Year to Cultivate Resilience

Again, we have just bared witness as tour diaries turned the page over into a brand new year.  And as such, we begin to reflect on the previous year and make plans for the next.  With the best intentions, people make resolutions only to break them before the end of January. When living with a chronic illness, however, life becomes unpredictable.  Every day we wake up, never knowing how our bodies are going to behave that minute, hour or day.  We...

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2017: A Year for Grace

2017 is, many would argue is finally upon us. It is the time for new calendars, new diaries, and for many the promise of a fresh start as if January 1st provides a clean slate, erasing all of our past mistakes and bad habits.  As if the turn of a date on a calendar assures us that we will become entirely new and improved people. [caption id="attachment_70542" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Welcome, 2017! [/caption] It is also the year when lots of people make ambitious and...

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2016: A Year of Hope

Presents have all been ferociously unwrapped, the Christmas decorations have been taken down, and 2015 has been erased to make room for a new start that 2016 promises us. [caption id="attachment_70114" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Just like in the sand, 2015 is being erased to make way for 2016[/caption] It's been a time of reflection, in which we acknowledge the people, events, and the changes that helped to define what the year has meant to us, as well as a time to look forward to the future...

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The sound of illness is often silence…

When living with a chronic illness, any chronic illness there are of course many symptoms that we are forced to live with as a consequence.  Both physical and psychological effects of living with a long-term health condition such as the neurological condition that I live with everyday.  Perhaps one of the most significant and common psychological repercussions of living with a chronic illness, which is not always discussed is loneliness. Loneliness is often discussed in relation to the elderly.  It is often...

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