Sarah Beth RN: Being Sick Changes You

Image of Sarah found here. 

Take some time today to read an incredibly powerful post by Sarah Beth Cowherd, author of the SarahBethRN.com blog. About Sarah:

As a young nurse in 2011, Sarah Beth Cowherd, RN began blogging about her experience in healthcare. She wanted to  explore how a new generation of nurses were changing the face of healthcare through the use of technology and social media.

Soon after launching SarahBethRN, Sarah developed a rare autoimmune disease called CIDP and autoimmune autonomic neuropathy – her primary diagnoses amongst a lengthy alphabet soup list of others. Overnight she went from being a vital, healthy, athletic, University of Virginia graduate and full time cardiac nurse to a young woman with a severely debilitating illness – now facing healthcare from the opposite end of the stethoscope. Thus, began the blog’s morph into a documentary of experiences as a patient with a chronic disease – and a persistent search for answers based on the premise of trusting instincts, questioning everything and maintaining an unfailing hope and faith that a cure IS around the corner.

Her most recent post, Being Sick Changes You, was exceptionally moving:

Being sick changes you. 

For a host of different reasons, I’ve caught myself daydreaming recently–remembering moments in my pre-sick life where I felt normal. My sense of normal was pretty ridiculous. I used to travel a lot. 

I’ve been white water rafting on the Nile River in Uganda. 

I went “surfing” off the Pacific coast of rural Nicaragua. 

Spent the night in the executive lounge in the Amsterdam airport. 

Strolled the tea fields outside Nairobi, Kenya. Continue reading here. 

Gosh. This young woman has had an amazing amount of experiences in both personal and professional roles before her illness changed everything. Even though we differ  greatly in our ages, and I have led a far more sedate lifestyle, still I can identify with much of what Sarah has to say. I'm looking at what Sarah describes as "the opposite end of a stethoscope" as well. I've been changed by my disease too, Sarah....and I feel your pain.