Dear Chronic. Here is what I've learned I'm an epileptic and my spine is crumbling. they say I will be in a wheelchair in less than 7 years. I suffer from {now mild} depression which use to be exceedingly bad coupled with anxiety. After my sister died I was hit with paranoia concerning death. I use to be all doom and gloom. Until one day I was thinking and I remembered where I use to work as a night shift manager for people who had what they call developmentally disability. That meant that their brains didn't function well. One of my clients was a paraplegic. This paraplegic use to take a pencil in his teeth and draw some of the most beautiful pictures I'd ever seen. Please remember, he had NO mobility. Each line he drew, the shading and highlights, everything took him an excruciatingly long time to do. But he did it all by using his teeth, his tongue and his lips. Absolutely unbelievable wouldn't you say? But I'm telling you the truth. What I'm about to tell you may seem as though I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, there are those who have it far worse than we do and yet, like my client, they kept fighting the good fight, and kept winning. Please try to find that something that will help you to continue to fight the good fight and win. Your chronic illness may never go away like mine but what we can do is try to focus less on that and more on what joy we can find within us and around us. Somehow, our pain both mental and physical as well as emotional somehow seems less more often than not. My client from the past gave me hope for the future. My hope for you is that you can find the same. Best wishes. ~D~