Is Your Life Really OK?

What a week.

Doctors appts 4 straight days for my kids and my wife. If you've been following my wife's blog Thriving With Neurofibromatosis, you have an idea of what she's been going through, and the choices we may be facing for her in the next few days and weeks.

What she has dealt with over the last 20 years is a pain level that many of us just can't imagine. Constant headaches since her days as a teenager. Doctors would continually tell her they were migraines or stress related. As a result, she built up a tolerance, a coping mechanism that changed her pain threshold. She would constantly be at some level of discomfort, and forgot what being 'OK' felt like. After pushing doctors over the last few months, it turns out she's been walking around with Hydrocephalus and swollen ventricles to the brain for an undetermined amount of time. A ticking time bomb with a random timer.

The most likely course of action will be a shunt, which creates continual drainage of fluid from the brain, lowering pressure, and virtually eliminating her headaches. She will feel 'OK' for the first time in years. Her approach to stress will change, her ability to focus and act will improve.

Her turning point was in accepting her diagnosis of Neurofibromatosis as more than an annoyance. More than something to just bear as a genetic disorder. The more she found out about NF, the more the puzzle pieces of her pain fell into place. Then she had to push the doctors beyond their pill pushing propensities, and dig deeper into what was happening to her. She made the choice to stop settling for her life as it was, even though she'd gone for years accepting that it was just the way her life would be.

Have you been settling? Ignoring your pain? Beyond physical pain, there is emotional pain, relationship pain, even financial pain. Look beyond where you are, where you think it's 'OK' to be, and instead look to a life you wish you had. Then choose to dig deeper, to question or downright ignore those that get in your way.

Be the Champion of your own life.