Welcome to the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge brought together by WEGO Health – a social network for all health activists.  Again, I am participating in the annual Writer’s Month Challenge in which I will be writing about my health activism and health condition based upon prompts given.

The first prompt reads as given:

Laughter is the best medicine…In honour of April Fool’s Day, is there something that always makes you laugh? A memory, favourite joke?

The old adage “Laughter is the best medicine…” may not be original and slightly banal; but after living with chronic illness for many years now, it is one that is undoubtedly true.  On bad days, when you are feeling awful, and it seems as if there are storm clouds directly above your head, finding something that makes you laughs, just brightens the day and lifts the spirits.

My dog Honey makes me laugh constantly on the bad days; she is such a little character.  Take the other day; whilst preparing the Sunday dinner, a few loose potatoes dropped onto the floor, and like the dog she is, Honey immediately picked one up from the floor, and as she is so stubborn would not leave go!!  This led to Honey having the potato in her mouth for approximately 15 minutes, just wandering around and not wanting to let go!  Here is a picture of her with the said potato:

After finally prising the potato from her mouth; Honey came back in with yet another potato in her mouth – clearly, we missed a potato on the floor, which did not go unnoticed by the dog!

It is these little antics, and the small things that she does everyday such as giving me kisses, or licking my feet that never fails in making me smile and laugh on even the worse days with my chronic condition.  And it is these smiles and laughs which makes life worth living, even when the symptoms are so severe that it feels as if you cannot survive another day with them.  So, on the bad days, even medicine cannot make one feel better, but laughter and finding things which make one smile really helps brighten the day despite living another day with chronic illness.