If I think about the future of illness, I am left with many confusing questions that must be answered first before I can hope to arrive at anything that approaches a satisfying conclusion.

People with long term illnesses such as Fibromyalgia and/or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can be forced to live with daunting questions and almost unbelievable life challenges. This happens every day, every week. Months roll by without sufficient answers and “life” can feel as if it is continuing to deteriorate. However, lets you and I choose not to allow ourselves to get despondent or maudlin because hope for feeling better (as a most valued commodity!) is still alive and kicking.

*Note: I urge you to answer the 3 questions below. They can help you be able to think through this confusing and frustrating problem and turn your life and health around…

(This podcast is 14 minutes, 22 seconds.)

If enough time passes by without a positive change, you can look back at years and maybe decades of having simply survived at a sub-par existence level with illness. At the furthest end, you may feel that you’ve forfeited the life you thought you could have and would have had. Yes, once you felt that you were capable of living a totally different life. Now your existence has turned out quite differently.

You cannot afford for your feelings of fear to escalate to the point that life seems almost unrecognizable and- possibly- not worth living.

Such is the reality and extended prospects of the future of Fibromyalgia, much less the future of illness in general. The background of why people facing the future of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome experience the illness so profoundly is that, at times, there appear to be so few reasons for continuing to hope. Seeking medical help becomes an almost full-time job that has varied if any rewards. Remaining hopeful and present that the reality of any type or degree of healing exists, that help will someday come…can both require more of you than is available at that moment.

I remember that when I began to get sick in the late 1980s, I was in my late thirties. By the time I regressed so badly that I fell into my sick bed, I was forty-two. In fact, I had had two fantastic jobs, the first one I gave up for the latter in an effort to keep going and try to regain my health. Still, a degree of failure ensued when I went on short term and finally long term disability. My health, family and future all became quickly uncertain and officially in jeopardy.

Let’s look back further. For me, until my own horrible health event manifested itself, life had been going better than ever before. It’s curious how tragedy always strikes like lightening, as a complete surprise. I never saw the problem coming. Oblivious to the tremendous impact that stress and strain were having on me, I ignored every warning sign. At the beginning of my setback, I thought the health problem would be short-lived. Surely I could and would get over it. However, at the end, I realized how wrong I had been in so many ways, yet that very attitude of hopefulness prevailed and turned out to be the most important catalyst for change. “Hope” was my springboard to faith and action.

In 2013 I have the hindsight and ability to look back on the past and know that I never could afford my blind side. It was always important for me to honor my health needs. Throughout the twenty years since then, I’ve attempted to do that and, because of the struggle, learned even more important lessons.

Dear One, over the next few weeks, I hope to share some of these lessons and how they are still changing my life. I’ll share them with you. Currently for me to make this blog work, I need your history, your thoughts and struggles, your efforts, too. Right now. Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are two illnesses that are capable of making each of us feel very alone, very incapable, and actually very unworthy. None of those are true. You and I are at our strongest when we participate in a joint effort. In other words, when we work together to come up wit the answers that help everyone.

None of us can totally walk alone with Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Let’s stomp our feet and not allow these maladies to get any of us down or out. Elements of our lives remain and they are still within our grasp. To do justice to this huge topic often means we must step back, look at the issues as other people see them and/or to analyze and be more honest with ourselves than we normally choose to be. Yes, it’s time that we be more realistic than ever. If you and I can accomplish these tasks, the future of illness does not have to look so bleak.

So, get out some paper and a pen to write with. Take as much time as you need to answer these 3 questions. Know that you won’t have all the answers at first, but starting the process will mean that you’re now moving forward!

1) What is the future of illness (e.g. your illness)?

2) What is the future of Fibromyalgia? (Is it the chronic illness that will never ever leave you?)

3) What is the future of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? (Are you doomed to have the symptoms without end? Will you be able to go into remission and ever enjoy periods of better health?)

How you answer these questions depends on your underlying attitude and ability to survive and feel happy in life. Truly. As for me, these questions and answers provide me with the impetus to do at least these two things: [a] to continue this blog (or some form of it) and [b] my healing work. (*See the tab above.)

To explore and carry out this type of process helps me to keep on keeping on. If I didn’t believe that most of us were capable of living healthier, happier lives, there would be no reason.

And, because I need you, hopefully as much as you need me, and choose to write about this huge topic, I in turn can offer you help and hope for your own health improvement. I was as sick as anyone could have been, but I feel better now. That’s why I ask you to do this exercise and then leave a comment below. Leave your thoughts right here. Be brave enough to write them down. Seeing your own words in print can be very powerful!

When you’ve finished, do one more thing: share this post on your social networks. Each of us wants to know how other people survive and walk bravely into the future. Today it’s your job to take a step forward. Know that the future of illness can and will be affected by what you choose to do with this challenge of getting well.

Thank you so much. I’m Cinda Crawford.

Your host of theHealth Matters Show