Ten years!

I'm writing this post a bit early actually, seeing how most of my readers are from America. But seeing how I may be unable to blog any tomorrow I figured I may as well write this post now before I go to sleep.

April 30th of this year marks 10 years since my high school graduation! I can not believe it's already been 10 years since I ran out of the school, cheering while wearing my graduation hat! I remember the school years before high school, high school felt so distant into the future and each school year felt like an eternity, then when finally reaching high school, those three years just flew by and the years since have really been speeding by! It's hard to imagine that 10 years ago at this time, I was still a high school student, laying in bed in my little apartment a couple of miles from school, sleeping nervously and having less than 12 hours left as a student.
I got up early on graduation morning to get ready and then the school's bus came to pick me and other students up in the town to drive us all together to school for a traditional graduation breakfast consisting of Champagne (or in our case, alcohol free cider) and various fruits and bread, a generally festive breakfast together with the whole class and our teachers, just chitchatting, signing each others hats, hugging and looking forward to the graduation ceremony that was held later in the day.

Family and friends came to school to attend the ceremony and celebrate, some had many coming if they lived nearby, for me who had nearly 100 miles to school, only my parents, my grandmother and a friend came, and my at the time boyfriend who was driving the rental car I had as graduation ride, a 1970 Cadillac DeVille with cab. That car was quite a sweet ride to graduate in I must say!

It was definitely a joy traveling almost 100 miles in that car! It was surprisingly comfortable too! Though we did put the roof up for the long drive home. 

Anyways, before going home we obviously had the graduation ceremony in the Auditorium of the school. Music was performed, speeches held and diplomas given out, then parents and so on went outside to wait for us students to come running out from the school singing and cheering!

Cruised around the town for a bit before driving home, didn't have a whole lot of time due to the long journey and the fact that I had a graduation party later in the afternoon in my hometown for family and friends so I needed to be back at a certain time. 

Here I am with my sign and some of the flowers I got, and wearing my hat and graduation outfit. It's traditional for girls to wear white when graduating high schools, either white pants and a jacket like I did, or a white dress. Guys traditionally wear a suit, preferably black, so the attire is pretty formal when graduating high school, note how we don't wear any special robes and such.

Here's one of me where the hat can be seen more clearly, and it's not a sailors hat, it's a Swedish high school graduation hat and the band around it is dark green, representing the high school program I attended: Agricultural. Each program has its own color, but you can also choose to just have black for high school in general. I choose to go with program specific and also choose to have my major and years embroidered onto the colored band. I wish I could have gotten the school name and years embroidered but we only got the choice of major and years or no embroidery at all at the time, unfortunately.

And yes, I did have really long hair at the time! I'm not sure if that is the longest I've had, or if my hair was indeed longer in 2011 before I cut it to shoulder length, but anyways.

Ten years has passed now since that day. And a lot of things have happened in those ten years. I have been working different jobs, gained a lot of life experience, lived abroad for a few years, worked abroad too, I've traveled some, some travels were near, some really far, all the way to China actually. 

I've attended some college where I studied some Chinese, Mandarin, and not just any college for that matter but one of the top universities in Sweden, Lund University. 

I've got to know people from all over the world, I have advanced my English level far beyond the level any school could have taught me, I started this blog some years ago and am now nearing 10000 hits on it! I could have never imagined when I started this blog that so many people would read it!

I've also in these last ten years found a lot of answers to mysteries in my life, namely health issues that I've had since childhood, my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. 

I have gone from a very active young adult, to a still relatively young adult living with a disability but still taking on each day with a smile and a fighter spirit from out of this world. I am Chronically Awesome and I'm damn proud of who I am! I am an awareness advocate for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and other rare conditions and disabilities. 

I am someone! Someone who may not be able to work a regular job any longer and am on disability, but I am someone, someone who has a very meaningful, happy life, someone who hopes her positive attitude may inspire others to think more positively about their own life! If I can change even just one person's life to the better, that is huge! 

And that's why I keep posting in this blog, and share things from my own life, things that has helped me or does help me in coping with a debilitating condition. I choose to be very open about my condition, and I write both about good and bad things. If I was to say everything about living with Ehlers-Danlos is fine, I'd lie! It's a condition that I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemy, but you CAN live well with it, and a positive attitude helps a lot there! 

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome has forced me to rethink much in my life, change a lot of plans and put dreams on ice, but it has not stopped me from living a purposeful life!

I sometimes look back to the time before my diagnose, to the time where I was still in high school and often wonder what my life would have looked like had I chosen a less physically demanding education and career after high school. I literally abused my body for ten years before my crash came in 2010-2011 that ultimately lead to me being diagnosed in 2012. I often wonder what degree I would have aimed for had I gone with a theoretical high school diploma and then college. Would I still be able to work had I not been doing so much that was very physically demanding for such a long time?

I don't have the answers to those things, but what I do know is that I have no regrets! I look back at those years of physically demanding education and jobs and see it as one hell of a good life experience to have! I also got one of the most important things in my life thanks to choosing the path that I chose. Had I not attended the high school that I did, and done some farm work afterwards, I would not have had my cat Nisse now as he was born on one of the farms where I worked some! Nisse is extremely important to me, he's always there for me when I need him, purring, headbonking and loving and he senses how I'm doing and stays even closer to me when I'm having a rough day. Without Nisse, I wouldn't be where I am today! 

Now I should try to catch some sleep, tomorrow is a day where I am going to celebrate, celebrate ten years since my graduation, celebrate where I am today and celebrate life! I shall also wear my graduation hat with pride! And in the evening my parents and I will go to attend a traditional spring celebration that happens each year on April 30th, a choir, preferably all men's choir sing special songs welcoming spring and sending off winter, and then there will be fireworks after the songs and spring speeches. 

There's usually also a big bonfire on those spring celebrations. I'm no fan of big fires so I stay far away from those though, I'm actually afraid of fires bigger than just say, a fireplace or so. A fair bit of wildlife may be hiding in the piles and being unable to get out when the fire is lit, and that really haunts me when it comes to bonfires like that. I just don't like it! 

I prefer just songs and fireworks! 

How a Panthera wheelchair changed my life

I mentioned in my blog post yesterday that I've now got a wheelchair, and it's not just any wheelchair but a Panthera S2 wheelchair which is light, very easy to propel, easy to pop a wheelie with and the S2 wheelchair I have is customized just for me according to my measurements and needs. I've had my wheelchair for over a week now and it's already feeling like a part of me!

I know a lot of people who aren't paralyzed see a wheelchair as a failure, and they do all they can to avoid one, and I can from my own experience now say that getting a wheelchair is not a failure and absolutely nothing to be afraid of!
If you live with a debilitating condition such as EDS, that affects your ability to walk and stand, a wheelchair can really change your life to the better the same moment you sit in the chair for the first time.
For several months now, getting out has been far from easy, many weeks I only managed to get out maybe 2-3 times in a whole week due to being in too much pain to begin with, or being in too much pain after coming back home. All my excursions outside had to be planned ahead of time and things I should have been looking forwards to often became something to worry about and hoping that my body would behave on the day of the event.
I wanted to go out more, I felt like a prisoner at home but the icy roads and aching body kept me indoors more than I'd like.

Last Monday I got my Panthera S2 wheelchair, and all of a sudden, I got my life back! I sit well in the wheelchair so I can sit for a longer period of time than I can manage on a regular chair, not needing to stand up as much has lessened the pain in my lower back and SI joints and letting my legs rest outdoors makes me walk better and with less pain when I'm at home. Using the wheelchair when I'm out of town has also improved my physical ability to drive a car thanks to being in less pain when I get into the drivers seat.
I also find that self propelling the wheelchair puts less strain on my shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands than walking with a cane or crutches does, and that's just an added bonus. I can now get outside whenever I feel like it and cover a greater distance than I can walk, much faster than I can walk and feeling a lot less achy and fatigued than after walking. I no longer need to take the car to go to places within my town, I take the wheelchair which means I both get exercise and save gas.
I'm active again, more so than I've managed to be in several months. I'm outside every day now, either for an errand, or just take a roll around in town for the fresh air and exercise. My arms are getting stronger, something that will hopefully help my shoulders stay in place better in the long run and the wheelchair also helps me with my balance when practicing wheelies or handling curbs outside. I'm already feeling the anti tip wheels are in the way, but will use them for a while longer until I know exactly what movements I can do without tipping backwards, it hardly ever happens but better safe than sorry!

I went to a travel and tourism fair in Gothenburg this past Saturday and I drove both ways, I couldn't have done that without having my wheelchair to get around at the fair. In the evening I went to a concert in another town, and thanks to having the wheelchair at the fair I managed both the fair and the concert and all the driving it involved to go there and back.

Some says getting a wheelchair makes you lazy. I'd say that's not true! For me at least, using the wheelchair outside is saving my back and legs for indoor things such as cooking and housework and it is enabling me to be more active, social and take part in more activities and I'm even going to look into if there's any handicap sports in my area where I can meet others living with a disability and maybe try some light sports like sitting table tennis, all to be more social and active in ways that I am able to. I can not keep up with fully able bodied people all the time, they're too fast paced and high intensity and they don't always understand what it's like to live with a disability, be it a disability from an injury or a condition.

Now I'm looking forwards to another fair in Gothenburg which is in April, a fair for people living with a disability and people who work with the various equipment used for making life easier. Live and function is the name of the fair if directly translating it to English and I'm literally bouncing with excitement to go there!

The decision to request a wheelchair wasn't easy to make, but it is by far the best decision I've made this far in the management of my EDS. A wheelchair isn't a cure, but it has taken away some of the dis out of disability, leaving me with more ability!

My wheelchair has really changed my life, and my experience as a part time wheelchair user is only positive!

I feel Chronically Awesome!

If you live with a chronic condition or know someone who does, check out www.chronicallyawesome.org