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.

Experiencing life when you have chronic pain and illness can be difficult when it comes to maintaining relationships. If you developed your illness as an adult for instance, adjusting to your new normal also means having to make big life adjustments. Making adjustments due to medical illness was something I did, and it was hard. Some of what I share here is based on my own experiences and the experiences of friends with medical illness.

When becoming a parent the last thing that comes to mind is the possibility that your child will develop a chronic illness. When chronic illness affects your child, the impact it can have on the whole family is significant. Of course the child is not the only one who is affected but the parents and siblings are experiencing it too.

Have you recently moved passed the hurdle of your medical illness? Are you feeling better now for the most part? Do you find that you have more energy to interact with others and get back to what you enjoy? In the past, most of your time was put towards doctor appointments, medical treatments and more. But now all of that has changed. You have fewer medical appointments, giving you more time to get back to what it is you enjoy doing most.

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?

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.