I have been nominated for the Wego Health Activist award. But the funny thing is - I am probably the least healthy person I know.

I am also less a health activist than I am an advocate - for life. I'd be better suited for a Best Sick Person Award or Most Broken MILF Award. I'd like that. To be called a MILF.

A health challenge makes you aware of the detail of illness. How it can consume you in the beginning and become your identity. Then the longer you deal with it, the illness begins to lay itself like fabric over your life - always draping your breath - but with holes for air. And you learn to find the holes.

I am still learning to live my new normal. Last fall I took my first steps in a year. My toes tied to my shins. I walked like a toddler with walking poles. I was so proud. The ketamine treatments allow me to now lift my feet off the ground. But I can only take steps for five minutes at a time, which still leaves me in the wheelchair on any excursions outside our home.

I often get frustrated. But I am learning to manage - and celebrate - life. Life for what it is. For the fact I can write and create from home. That my children don't leave me alone. For my husband who does everything around the house as I cannot bend to do dishes or laundry or make a bed. I could feel self pity. I'm quite good at feeling sorry for myself. But I went down that road last year, and it didn't lead anywhere I wanted to be but to a darkness so deep I became lost.

So I choose life. I'm not perfect at it. I have days that are blue when skies are grey. But those moments pass and it is then I realize that without the darkness, I would not appreciate the light. If a flower sat under the sun its entire life its pedals would burn. So we need the night. So as I continue my journey and there are turns in the road and sheets of doubt cross my mind - I think of my blessings and am reminded each day of why I advocate for life.

Nomination: https://awards.wegohealth.com/nominees/micaela-626