Appreciation

I have been very unwell and not on the computer much in a while...I have been trying to concentrate my limited energies and efforts on my health... I guess it is not that surprising that this is my first post of 2016...

I recently completed the Body Mind Awareness Program (BMAP) through the Nova Scotia Health Authority's Integrated Chronic Care Service (ICCS)...  My goal had been to attain a better balance in my health which seems forever doomed to be significantly OUT of balance...  The thing I have FINALLY realized is that with this as my health goal (and all the other grandiose health goals that predeceased it) I have been setting myself up for failure.  My health is what it is.  The reality of multiple chronic illnesses means that my health always will be out of balance.  I truly appreciate and am extremely thankful that I have illness for which there are possible treatments.  I say thank you every day to the life saving research of Sir Frederick Banting and other team members who battled seemingly insurmountable odds to find a treatment for what used to be a terminal disease - diabetes as well as Addison's Disease - two polyglandular autoimmune endocrine diseases that are now complicated by severe mental illness.   Living has gotten very complicated and very hard, but it is my family & friends who help get me through these very rough times - one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time.... 

I recently had a health care team member ask me about a period of my life I had almost forgotten about - the period of life from ages one to seven  - the time BEFORE I was diagnosed with my first chronic illness.  The question took me back - I do not know that I had ever been asked that before and I have been seen by more than my share of health practitioners and specialists.  What did a ME without chronic illnesses look, feel and sound like...

For the next while, I will be focusing on trying to better understand, and come to appreciate WHO I AM - REALLY.  This builds upon my personal portfolio and includes who I was before all the requirements of chronic illness & who I am now, despite, in spite of, or perhaps at least partly because of all of my first hand experiences - those that are health-related & otherwise...

Included below is my Nursery Photo from the hospital where I was born in Halifax.  I have sought out and been able to view my archived pediatric medical charts and I was a healthy, high achiever from the outset, earning a perfect APGAR healthy baby score.  My red hair was visible from the start - a gift from both my maternal Grandfather Edson Stevens, and my paternal Grandfather Everett Boutilier.   Time would prove that I had a stubborn temperament to match my red hair, but those are details for later in the mystery of my story...  All for me for now... Take gentle care, S8)

Susan Lynn (Stevens) Boutilier

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada