Humbly Courageous

Hello and welcome back! Each week, when writing this blog, I don’t usually know what I’m going to write about when the week starts, but at some point it becomes clear to me what I should write about that could possibly help someone else. This week, I ran across this verse, James 1:4 it says.....Let perseverance finish it's work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  I've read that verse many times during my life. This time when I read it, it stood out to me. Perseverance, is what it takes to live a fulfilled life in my opinion. I think a fulfilled life is one where we live out the plan set out before us. Each of us has difficult paths along the way. Days when it seems we can't keep going, or don't want to keep going. Things seem too hard. These difficult journeys for some can last a short time, or sometimes a lifetime. In the case of those living with Muscular Dystrophy, it's often a lifetime journey of physical difficulty. So it takes perse

Hello and welcome back to another blog! Thanks for being here. I appreciate your support! Marriage…. In honor of our 22nd wedding anniversary on Saturday October 23rd, I thought I’d share a bit about what marriage is like from my perspective as a person with a disability. Anyone who is married knows that marriage is hard! Sure it’s amazing and great and all of those things, at least hopefully it is! However, it is also hard work. It’s a lot of compromise and selflessness. Add a disability into the mix, and that requires another level of selflessness on the partner of the person with a disability. It’s just the truth. Wedding day! My husband and I met when I was a freshman in high school, and he a sophomore. When I asked him what he thought when he first saw me, he said naturally he wondered why I walked differently. I guess the rumor was that I had a club foot, which I didn’t know until just recently. I had surgery and did casting as a child to correct that, so it wasn’t accurate as mo

Hello and welcome back to another blog! Every time I hear that Ed Sheehan song that starts out “when your legs don’t work like they used to before” my mind wanders. I know it’s a love song written about growing old together. I think, how true that already is for me. My legs don’t work like they used to before. I think, will they soon no longer work  at all? When is that day coming if it is? Am I prepared?  It’s the sobering reality of living with a progressive muscle disease. I’m fortunate that my type of Muscular Dystrophy, Bethlem Myopathy, is slowly progressive. Some people aren’t aware they have MD until their later teen years or in their 20’s or maybe even beyond. Some are like me, and have never known not living as a disabled person. Pictures from the day I was finally diagnosed correctly, it was a very happy day to finally have answers! I wanted to recap my journey with MD so far for anyone new here. I’m 47 years old, and married to my high school sweetheart. We have two beautif

Hello and welcome back to another blog! Optimism...hopefulness and confidence about the future. Are you naturally an optimist? I am not. It's just not the way I was wired, but I have worked to change that over the years. Still, it's just my natural tendency to fall towards the negative, so I have to really work to change my mindset. I learned to strive to be an optimistic person from my mother. She always looks at the bright side of things.  Me and my mom ❤️ Growing up, it used to really upset me when my mom would do this. I would often be woe is me, and she would say, not so fast! There is another way to look at the situation. A lot of times, this was related to my disability. Looking back, and after having my own children, I now realize how hard this must have been for my mom, who was dealing with the unknowns of my disability right along with me. As a parent, I know that when your child is hurting or struggling, you feel it too. Mentally and physically. It hurts to see your

Hello and welcome back to another blog! Do you love to laugh? I for sure do! For as long as I can remember I’ve used laughter to get me through hard times. Growing up, my dad was very funny, he still is. He was always cracking jokes, and just being a jokester. His sense of humor rubbed off on me for sure. I was always begged to do my impersonations, and loved making people laugh. I still do! My humor can be quite dry, and sometimes inappropriate probably 😁 My sister and I have our own humor language, that no one else understands, but to us it’s hilarious. One of my best friends of all time and I had this humor language in high school where all we had to do was look at each other, and would  just crack up somehow knowing exactly what it was all about. My cousin and I share a quite odd sense of humor, but it works and has gotten us through some difficult times! Anyway, my point being that humor and laughter are great tools to use to get you through the hard times.  I had so many surgeri