Gotta love when you lose a blog post.

Evidently I was not meant to post that particular entry. Even though I am frustrated, I have realized that if I give up hope now, I lose everything. Mitochondrial disease wins, every person who has ever wished ill upon me wins. I can't let that happen. My reasoning is simple: I refuse to lie back an accept that I am defeated. I have accepted that I have a serious illness and it will likely affect me for the rest of my life. As much as is humanly possible, I have accepted that a cure for my particular disease will probably not be found in my lifetime. What I have to figure out is what needs to happen in order for me to live with this new "normal" including my new baseline. I've come to realize that this may just be "as good as it gets". Accepting that is going to be easier said than done, but I can't keep looking to the past, and I can't look at what I don't have. If I choose to focus on the negatives and all of the things that I don't have.

My condition causes a great deal of grief. I grieve the person I wish I could be. I see other people my age, they can run, they can enjoy a county fair, they have energy to get out of bed on less than eight hours of sleep. They can work several days in a row. See, I'm focusing on the negatives. There are a lot of them, but guess what? I'm still here.

While I'm still alive, I choose to appreciate the things in life that I can still enjoy. For now, I can still enjoy small amounts of my favorite foods. I can watch a movie, I can write things, I can talk to the people I love and enjoy time with them. Despite the fact that I don't know how much time I have left, I am choosing to focus on the fact that the most important thing in life is not to focus on how much time you have left, but to enjoy that time as much as is humanly possible. Right now, that's easier said than done, because my quality of life is less than desirable. More comfort and pain control will allow me to enjoy the time I have left with my loved ones. I say that because I have no idea how much time I actually do have. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be a year from now or twenty years from now.

I need all of the prayers I can get right now. I'm struggling, but I'm trying to do the best I can to hang on until my neurologist appointment.