It feels amazing to say this, but I finished a semester! It may not have been picture perfect, but I did it. I came back to school and I'm glad to say I made it through. So how did I go from a girl who was struggling to get through a class to someone who successfully finished a semester?

It's really a concept called mindfulness that helped me. Mindfulness is about being in the here and now and that's what I did to get through the semester. I didn't worry about what was coming up later in the semester, instead, I dealt with issues in the here and now. I actually had a song that helped me. It's Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time". I wrote one sentence at a time when I had a hard or boring paper to write. I took each challenge one step at a time. I stayed in the here and now for the most part.

I think that's all one can do with a chronic illness; take it step by step. I know it worked for me.