Ok, guess this is share and tell day...

When I read this article I just think of someone that seems to be keeping themselves down.

But the truth of the matter is that many people that are very sick and in a shit load of pain or even dying are still out busting their asses on a daily basis doing their work come hell or high water.

I'm not saying this from the perspective of some outsider, I am one of those people; I'm one medically screwed up piece of work.

Here is a list of all of the various diseases/syndromes I have been actually medically diagnosed with.

Type 1 Diabetes

Stiff person syndrome

Abnormal antibody syndrome

Benign fasciculation cramp syndrome

(This one is really a load of fun. Basically this means I have severe muscle spasms all over my body; sometimes so bad that I will fall or injure myself and flop around looking like someone with epilepsy. Unlike epilepsy though, this is not a seizure, so when it happens I'm awake for the whole damn thing. Is a god damn riot. Seriously wish I could whip this shit out on demand I'd be the life of the party. The "benign" part just means "this one's not fatal".)

Alopecia

Hashimoto's disease

Asthma

Autoimmune arthritis

Autoimmune polyglandular syndrome, Type 1

My kitchen cabinet looks like a pharmacy because I'm on so many damn drugs, between the muscle relaxants, pain killers, insulin, and more. I'm on the top shelf stuff, the kinds of prescriptions where the doctor still fills out the prescription on real paper because it's required by law since this shit is so powerful and so addictive.

Add to this I have health problems that can't be accounted for by the things the doctors have been able to pin down. Like the fact that I can't stand up to fast or I'll pass out; they know it's because my blood pressure drops way too low, but they still can't figure out why. Or the fact that I sometimes suffer temporary paralysis. Imagine waking up and not being able to get up; I'm not talking about where your arm fell asleep because laid on it and cut off the circulation. I'm talking about waking up and laying there for an hour unable to move or even speak; trying to moan or make some kind of noise until my wife finally wakes up so she can lift me out of bed and move my limbs around until they start working again.

I've had doctors visits where the doctor told me it was a miracle I hadn't been brought in on a stretcher, and visits where they've told me that (and I'm going to have to paraphrase here), as bad as I am they just don't know how much longer I have.

On my good days I'm on muscle relaxants and pain killers and I still am in horrible pain throughout my whole body. There is the pain that is always there and then there are the shootings pains that double me over, or my muscles locking up to where I can't move. And those are the good days; where I get my ass out of bed and go to work anyway. Every 3 months like clockwork I go back in to the doctor and they look me over and run tests and occasionally they will bring in some young new doctor and tell them how "interesting" of a patient I am; and just in case you are somehow unsure you don't ever want to be an "interesting" patient.

On my really bad days I call in sick to work and then I take enough pain killers and muscle relaxants to knock myself unconscious and I just pray for the pain to get a little better.

Everyday I wake up, I breathe a little sigh of relief that I lived another day. Then I get off my ass and get back in the game, because today really might just be my last.