Fight

Life decided that it was going to be funny. It was going to be difficult and disheartening just when I needed it not to be. When I started feeling great, it laughed and said, "Oh wait watch this!" and then BAM I physically feel like crap again. All I have ever done is succumb to this disease. And now, when my life is really starting to take off, it wants me to do it again. So I said no.

For the first time since being diagnosed, I said no. I will not become your slave. I will not distance myself from the things I love. Why should I? Because you cause me physical and emotional harm every day? Because you have taken away almost every food I enjoy eating? No. I refuse.

My sister taught me a valuable lesson all those years ago. I am just now remembering it. She was dying. Literally dying. At the age of 22, my sister knew she was going to die. We didn't. We didn't listen or believe it. We couldn't. But she knew and she was in such severe pain mentally, physically and emotionally every single moment of every day. Yet she still smiled. She still tried to keep us and herself happy. And she fought. She fought up until her very last dying breath. I'll never forget that.

So this morning, I woke up from an almost sleepless and painful night and I heard her voice in my head. She told me to keep fighting. She told me not to give in anymore and to fight it. She said many things but the last sentence I heard was, "I am telling you to fight, Kate. We fight. That's what we do."

And she was right. If she could fight back with what little strength she had, then so can I. I won't be brought down. And I will fight this pain until I am healed. I am a child of God, and that means more than anything this pain can do to me.