Courtney's Voice for Arachnoiditis

As a person that
has spent a significant part of my life questioning my "worth" often
feeling "not good enough" I can say the last year of my life has been
the most difficult year I hope to ever have. Here's why, as you may or may not
know, I have been having health problems and when I was forced to resign we
reluctantly started a GoFundMe page out of necessity to get a diagnosis and
help. What I learned is this made a lot of people uncomfortable (as it did me,
but when your health and life is on the line you will do whatever it takes as
my husband and I have learned). I have lost close friends, I have had family
and friends tell me I should be ashamed of myself, that it was
"wrong" and I better hope "karma" doesn’t get me too bad….
I get it, I understand it's not the popular choice and believe me, it was not
our first choice. It was our only choice. I have beat myself up about it for
months. There was this "fork in the road" do I go down the path that
the younger me would've bolted down? The path that allowed me to convince
myself that this was in some way directly proportionate to my worth and
confirmed my fear all along that I was in fact not "good enough". Or
the path that I have taken, the path that understands this makes people
uncomfortable and it's not ideal and definitely wasn’t something I ever thought
I would be doing. And knowing this has NOTHING to do with me, or my worth. I
have nothing to be ashamed of and certainly have nothing to apologize for.





When it comes to
your health and choosing between mortgage and your health (which I pray none of
you have to ever try to decide) we chose mortgage, which meant that we had no
money for doctors and appointments. So we asked friends and family and well the
general public for help, we were overwhelmed by the response by so many and the
prayers and are truly grateful for those people. The people that had negative
responses or felt it was tacky or inappropriate have every right to feel that
way. I definitely understand to some degree. I guess being on this side of it I
just pray that those people are never in this situation, never have to choose,
but if they do find themselves here, or do have to choose. I will be there to
support them and let them know that I may not be able to offer anything
financially but emotionally and spiritually I have their back.





To those who wanted
me to feel bad, guilty, ashamed whatever…. I am sorry. I am not going to go
down that rabbit hole. I know and my husband knows that we did what we needed
(and still need) to do for our family. If there is ANYTHING I can do to lighten
the burden on my amazing husband I will do everything I can because he didn’t
sign up for this. Most spouses would've walked out already, and let me say I
have begged him to leave, to get out of this mess. He hasn’t and he won't
because he loves me and he thinks I am worth it. And that is all that
matters.  It may not be the right choice
for everyone and I respect that. I will not feel guilty for trying to get well
so that I can be the wife/mother/woman I am intended to be, without guilt or
regrets.





We appreciate the
continued love and support we have received from so many of you and wish you
all the very best.