A Good Reminder

So, lately I have not exactly been on a self-pity trip, but haven't exactly been out to better the world either. I was especially feeling sorry for myself this weekend, for many different reasons. (which is stupid, I know, but I know everybody does at some time or another.)

So as I was leaving from the 8 piano lessons I taught yesterday and hurrying over to the Crohn's and Colitis support group I am STILL the facilitator for (yes, STILL, I say that because I was grumbling to myself the whole way over there that I am sick of being the only facilitator and that I was so tired I would much rather go home than sit around with 5 or 6 people and talk about incurable diseases), I pretty much wanted to do anything else than that. Plus attendance hasn't been more than 5 people the past 3 months so I wasn't expecting much.

Well I got there and 12 people had shown up! And after a fabulous hour and a half of sharing experiences and advice, I left feeling much-needed reprimanding. Every time I leave one of those meetings I can't help but count my blessings all the way home. I'm HEALTHY, maybe not in the completely normal sense of the word, but compared to being sick with colitis I really am. I've really been blessed to be given a second chance at everything. I remember back during all those long hospital stays and seemingly never-ending bouts with colitis and the whole "leg thing" (blood clot-surgery-skin grafts) wondering how I would ever be the same person again. Of course I'm not the same person I was before, but it is amazing to me how easy it is to forget how blessed we are. Well, for me anyways! I can't believe I get so caught up in self-pity sometimes that I forget what an amazing blessing it is that I wake up in my own bed (no hospital), can walk to the bathroom (I have my leg, and it works), and that it's the first time I've used the bathroom in 12 hours. (no more colitis) And that I can go on to do perfectly normal, fun things all day long without having to give my health a second thought.

Meeting with so many people who are less fortunate than me in the health area always brings me back down to earth! There was a 10-year old girl recently diagnosed with Crohn's there last night, and I could tell you the stories of hundreds more people I've met over the past year dealing with these devastating diseases, they are all heart-wrenching, yet full of hope. The participants of the support group are always so thankful to me for making a group like this possible, but as I drive home to my medication, IV, pain, hopelessness and surgery-free world again, I always feel like I need to say a big thank you to all the people I meet at these meetings who remind me of what I really have. I need to remember it more often!