Embracing the suck for a year!

Today embrace the suck is celebrating its first Birthday!

It’s official, I have been bombarding you with details of the emotional rollercoaster that is my life for a whole year, filling your social media feeds with tales of poo and vomit, tears and tantrums (both mine and my children’s – the tears and the tantrums that it is!).

I made the decision to start my blog because I felt I needed some way of being able to express how I felt about different aspects of my life after becoming a CF mum and I needed somewhere I could do that without having to physically talk about it, because actually talking about it, even now, almost three years on is still hard.

I also wanted to show that life as a CF parent isn’t all doom and gloom and I don’t need people to feel sorry for me and more importantly that even with a CF diagnosis life can be “normal”, just a different type of normal and whilst it can be difficult to cope with at times, and whilst there will be times CF will get you down, the good times will far outweigh the bad.

I have to admit, I never really expected anyone to read my posts and I certainly never expected that they would reach so far, I am astonished and humbled that my 47 blogs over the past year have been read by a whopping 22,500 people across 37 counties, which is just incredible.

I have been on the receiving end of some truly lovely comments and have been contacted by other parents who share the CF journey with their own children and I am comforted to know that I am not on my own in all of this, and if my blog has helped just one person to cope better following their own child’s diagnosis, whether it be CF or something else, I feel like I have accomplished something very special.

I’ve learned that I am far from alone, that the things I go through and how I feel are all completely “normal”, I’ve learned to accept that where there are good times there will also be more difficult, testing times, but that I have the ability and strength to get back up dust myself off and start again.

I hope my posts have helped to answer questions that people may have felt they could not ask me and perhaps helped to explain the rationale behind some of the odd things I do or my strange reactions the to certain situations, like running a mile at the sight of something as basic a mud kitchen.

I hope I’ve managed to give an insight into my chaotic world, for people to read about what goes on behind closed doors and in doing so has made people understand and be more appreciative of the fact that no one ever really knows what others may be going through.

Life with CF is never straight forward but when is life straightforward for anyone? So as long as I can stay strong through the bad times, laugh during the good times, and enjoy life with my boys, making memories that is all that matters to me.

I’ve come to realise that I have the most amazing people around me, my family and friends and a community of other CF parents with whom I share this journey all of who I am incredibly grateful to for the on-going support I receive. I am blessed and am more than aware that despite my life at times being a bit harder than I would like it to be, there are far more people out there worse off, and if Chester can wake each day with the sheer determination he shows so can I!

Thank you for your continued support, I will continue to Embrace the Suck!