"Are you up for this, though?" That's what someone at work asked me when I requested off for NOLA. I thought about it. Have I been feeling my best? Definitely not. Have I been feeling well, even? Not really. Have I been struggling? Yes. Since October it's been test after test, week after week of waiting, only to get no answers. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. But worse than that is how many of my friends I've seen struggling, too. The countless infusions, injections, hospital admissions, procedures. The medical bills piling up. The insurance headaches. The impossibility of keeping up with work and life and everything in between when this disease takes all you have and rips it out of you on a daily basis. A friend of mine put it best when she said, sitting at work in pain, that it's amazing how much we learn to take. (@alicia_aiello) The kids in this photo, I watched them grow up dealing with all of this and more. One week a year, they had a home away from home—and so did I. This year it's time to start over with a whole new group of kids, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure they go home feeling better about their illness than they do when they walk into our cabin. I've seen this disease take a lot. I've watched it take away opportunity, take away happiness, take away loved ones. But it's also put these people in my life for a reason, and it's given me a purpose. I look at this photo on my desk every day to remember why I do what I do. So yeah, I may have to crawl across this finish line, but you can bet your ass I'm getting there. Am I up for this? What I said was that I'll try my best and do what I can. What I should've said was HELL YES I AM. #runforoasis #oasisstrong #campoasis #teamchallenge http://online.ccfa.org/goto/runforoasis 💙
