Bad veins

I am going in for my Tysabri infusion today. I hate Tysabri days. For as long as I can remember, I have had"bad veins" or in other words,it's a pain in the ass to get an IV started on me. I have had hundreds of IVs and I can't tell you the number of times I have heard a nurse say, "wow your veins are small and deep, I'm going to have to go diving for them." Just what you want to hear as they shove the harpoon into your hand. My dear husband has veins that resemble garden hoses and has only had one, ONE IV in his entire life. You know, it was unfair enough to get two diseases that require a lot of vein poking but it is undeniably unfair that I have "bad veins" to go along with it, and I have warts on my hand. Tysabri makes it almost impossible for your immune system to fight the wart virus. AND, I have to take a steriod before the infusion because I am prone to experience the rare side effects and steriods elevate blood sugar levels which cause dehydration which in turn make finding those damn small deep veins all the more difficult. So today I am a small veined, dehydrated,warty, diabetic, with MS. Yea for me. I am really short too. Who designed me? Do I have a warranty, can I be refurbished?

I am chronic

chronic(kronic)
–adjective

1.	constant; habitual; inveterate: a chronic liar.

2.	continuing a long time or recurring frequently: a chronic state of civil war.

3.	having long had a disease, habit, weakness, or the like: a chronic invalid.

4. a long duration (opposed to acute)

I was diagnosed at age eight with type 1 diabetes. This is not your grandmother's diabetes. Type one is an auto immune disease that destroys the insulin producing cells of the pancreas. It is also called juvenile diabetes because it usually affects otherwise healthy juveniles. It has no cure, it is chronic. It cannot be cured, only controlled with diet and exercise, and daily insulin injections.

Fast forward 18 years. I was a new mother. My baby was eight months old. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Another chronic auto immune disease.

So many people use the cliche, " you are more than your diseases". I am, but a lot of what I am is because of my diseases. I have spent a lot of my life masking the fact that I live and have lived almost every day of my life with a chronic illness. It is exhausting to do that and has caused me a lot of worry and pain. So today I say, "I am chronic ". There is absolutely nothing wrong with that no matter how uncomfortable it makes someone else feel.