freestyle poems and ballads

Life with Chronic Illness - A Profile

She danced around the house, twisting and twirling through the halls. Leaping bounds of glory, broom in one hand, dustpan in the other. Brenda Penner, my grandmother, loved to dance. I will always remember her as a bright, fun, bubbly woman with incredible amounts of hope and ambition. I've known her my entire life, all sixteen years, one month, and two weeks of it. She was always running, on the go, pushing through to the next task. This woman never stopped for anything. Being about six years old, and truly having nothing better to do, I'd help with every bit of house work I could, and she'd always find a fantastic way to make it fun. This usually involved some blaring Michael Bublé, or maybe on a good day some early 2000's pop music. I'd sit atop the rumbling top-loading washing machine, she'd fold the warm, freshly dried clothes beside me, and we would sing our hearts out, bopping our heads to the tunes. These were the happiest moments of my entire childhood. My grandmother has endured tremendous struggle, though, and that puts the entirety of these happy memories into true perspective.
I spent as much time with my grandma as I possibly could when I was a child, and I still try to see her often to this day. I always had overwhelming amounts of fun with her, she shares so much joy and love with the people around her. Little did I know, for a large majority of this bippity-boppity fun, she was in extreme pain. She was physically and emotionally exhausted. About nine or ten years ago she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia which is a chronic disease that alters the way your brain processes pain signals, and that increases pain and tenderness in muscles throughout the body. I like to think that I was a magical cure, and that just hearing my young, high-pitched voice would make her hurt and exhaustion disappear, but that's not how the world works. I never understood just how difficult life was for her until recently. I always knew that moving around was a struggle, but I didn't realize what else comes with having fibromyalgia. She described it as, "an extreme tired that I could not put into words, horrible body aches." Even just daily life tasks, like grocery shopping, or even walking up or down a flight of stairs, seemed like the most painful and exhausting things in the entire world. Being so physically limited in life is a huge deal. It not only takes a toll on your body through the pain, but there are also some emotional struggles associated too. My grandma had a really difficult time accepting her illness, and that she just couldn't do as much as she used to. She said that "you have to mourn the loss of the old you and start again with the new you because your normal is no longer what your normal was." She is still an extremely strong, powerful, and independent woman, but now she has reached a point in her life where she just needs to settle down, relax, and take a breather.
My grandma is a very caring and empathetic woman, and she always does everything she can for anybody. That constant going, pushing through the pain, wasn't healthy at all. She was so stressed every day, always worried about where she needs to be and when to take care of everyone around her. Extreme stress is attributed as a cause of fibromyalgia, and when questioned about it, my grandmother definitely agrees that if she took a step back in life, and just calmed down, she'd be in much better health today. Being apart of the baby boomer generation, my grandma is among some of the first people to ever truly have fibromyalgia. She was ignored for a long time, turned down by medical professionals for years. She did a lot of research on her own time, she had family members who also had the disease. She would go to appointments and visit with her doctor regularly, "I wanted to find out what's wrong with me and get someone to listen to me and to understand. That was hard, it wasn't as heard of back then and a lot of doctors, my doctor included, didn't believe there was such a thing, so trying to convince somebody that something was wrong was one of the hardest parts of the whole thing." Spreading the word about fibromyalgia has been a big goal of my grandmother's, and I hope to aid her in that journey as I grow older and develop a written platform.
Living with a chronic illness is one of the most physically and emotionally taxing things a person can do. Being physically limited is difficult, and frustrating, and heartbreaking. Even through the struggle, though, my grandma prevailed. Brenda Penner, a hero among the weakness. She continues to push through life, to help people, to help herself. She believes that "there's a lot to be said for clear conscious, and I've done all that I could do for any one person, and I still do within the realm of my possibility." She is a driven and motivated woman, and I believe she always will be. No, she can't just drop by the grocery store as she pleases. No, she can't run around the house with her grandchildren, dancing like she used to. Yes, she is capable and worthy of every single blessing she has been given in life. My grandmother struggles every single day of her life, but still she has everything she could ever ask for. She has loving children who would do anything for her, and grandchildren like myself who will always be there to help her when she needs it. She is incredible, and I am so grateful to have a woman like her to look up to. One piece of advice that is often preached to me is to "never take your health or your mobility for granted, because one day it could all be gone," and I find this to be one of the most valuable things to take away from my grandmother. My grandma's story is one of perseverance and resilience through the toughest of times, and recognizing the good in your life to get you through it all. Be grateful for all that you have, and all that you will receive, because nothing is guaranteed in life.