What's Your Quality Of Life?

It's been a really long day and I've been doing my best to get through the day. My pain level today is off the charts!!! All day I've been fighting with my pain to the point where I can't get comfortable at all. I did manage to have a couple of great laughs watching the show "Modern Family" with my wife in the evening though. Once again laughter is a great medicine!!! Tomorrow will be a new day and I will hope and pray that the pain eases. Today however I wanted to write about quality of life.

One of the things that I'm learning through all this is that my quality of life can still be good even though everything seems so bad. Sure my quality of life at the moment isn't what I'd like it to be, however I'm still learning and adjusting to the way things are now. With what has happened to me there are so many levels to which things have changed. On one side of the coin I have to adjust to the physical changes that have happened to me and try to deal with all the different ways in which I have to do things now. Something as simple as trying to butter a piece of toast is no longer simple to me anymore. It's not that I can't do it anymore I just have a different way of doing it now.

So changes have been made to a lot of ways that I do things, some easier than others to say the least. Have I made all the changes that need to be made? Are things working out perfectly with some of the changes I had to make? No to both!! The point is that changes can be made and a better quality of life is possible. It just takes time and it isn't going to happen over night.

This year there are a couple of things that I have started working on to improve my quality of life. One of my biggest passions before all this happened was playing golf. I was practically born with a club in my hand and when I was diagnosed, something that was a very big part of my life was taken away from me. Another big part of my life that was taken from me was my love of photography. Now these were two very big aspects to my life and to lose them both was huge. For a while I was stuck thinking that they were both gone and that they couldn't be replaced.

As hard as it was for me I am glad to say that this year I was able to play golf this year for the first time in 5 yrs. Like I said before changes have to be made and I was taught be rehab how to play with one hand. I had to use a cart and could only play a bit however the point is that I was able to do it. Do I play every day? No! I haven't played since the summer because of some setbacks, and this is what I mean by taking time. It's going to take some time to make this a regular in my life again. What's great is that it adds a whole new dimension to the quality of life I live.

The other change that's occurred in my life to improve my quality of living is that I've started to paint. I tried to start my photography again, however I was having too much trouble trying to use the camera again. So it was at this point that I decided to teach myself to paint. I found a way to express the same things that I did in my photography just in a different medium. Again what I was able to find was a different way of putting the puzzle together. I was also thinking about starting to post some of my photo's here on my site and maybe selling them. What does everyone think about that?

The second way to which I have had to adjust is to the emotional side of things. There have been so many ups and downs, that trying not to let the negative creep in to my mind has been difficult. Even trying to deal with how the rest of your family deals with this is difficult. On a day to day basis I see how something like this affects my family and that is really hard on all of us. There is only one answer for how I have been able to deal with the emotion side and that's my faith in God.

Let's face it what I am going through is emotional stuff, and whenever I need to get through an emotional time I turn to my faith. It helps me through each day and there are days that I wouldn't be able to get through things without His help. People ask me how I get through this? How do you live with such pain? How do you deal with your emotions? The answer is simple in that God is with me every step of the way.

If you suffer from chronic pain then there is something that you need to remember in all of this. You can better the quality of your life it just takes a little time and effort!!