This is a journal entry from a dear friend of mine who gave her blessing to share her words as both a caregiver and a spouse to someone going through cancer treatment. The names have been changed to protect their privacy, but the hope is that her words will help those going through similar struggles, and will resonate with others that share similar stories.

Trying to show support to loved ones living with chronic pain and illness is hard. You may even feel like your efforts to help are falling short. In this article I explore some main points about this topic so caregivers and loved ones have more information about chronic pain and illness.

Are you familiar with the term secondary trauma? Chances are that this is the first time you are hearing about it, so let me give you a brief description of what this phrase actually means. Secondary trauma is defined as experiencing, hearing about, or being witness to life threatening or life-changing events of another person on a regular basis.

You have been told by your doctor that you have chronic pain and a chronic illness. So now what are the next steps? And more importantly, how will you be able to parent with chronic pain?

Self-care is something we hear about often. We hear that adding in a self-care practice is important for our overall well-being. So then why is it so hard to actually get the ball rolling on taking care of our needs? Self-care may sound good in theory, but to actually implement it is an entirely different story. Do you ever wonder why that might be the case?

Some people say that change happens when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone so that is what I am doing today in writing my first blog post! In sharing a little about myself, my hope is to provide support and be a voice for those of you who suffer from chronic illness and pain since this is also part of my story. I also hope to provide some clarity to those of you who are supporting friends and loved-ones dealing with a chronic health condition.