Transcript

Jenni Prokopy:
Hey! This is Jenni Prokopy. You probably know me from my site I started about six years ago, its ChronicBabe.com. Its this site I started for young women like me with Chronic Illness, and its something that grew out of my personal experience. I was diagnosed as a very young person with Fibromyalgia in my early twenties, long before Fibromaylagia was considered by a lot of people to be a real disease.

One of the things I have learned that has really helped me that I wanted to share with you today is the idea of acceptance. This is kind of controversial but its something that I write about a lot and my readers seem to really react really well to it. We're talking about embracing your illness, kind of gathering it close to you, almost wrapping it up in a warm blanket, like a baby. Because it is really part of you. Its part of your body. Its part of you that you're going to carry around for the rest of your life for most people. And treat it like something that is there, that is part of you - it just releases you and give you so much more freedom.

You might notice I'm wearing this enormous wool warm sweater. I'm here in Chicago, where I live, we just survived this enormous blizzard, the big blizzard of 2011. You cant avoid the storm; you cant avoid the Chronic Illness. You have to accept it. You can either freak out about this blizzard that's coming or you can prepare yourself by taking care of yourself and lining up all the things that you need. Once I got that state of mind, of acceptance, its really freeing. That might sound a little flighty, but I've got to tell you its really life-changing when you get to that place.

I look forward to spending time on WEGO Health and meeting with other people and talking with them about their experiences, hopefully sharing the idea of acceptance and hearing about their experiences. I'll see you online! Thanks, I'm really glad we got to share this moment today.