Half-Time Show: What Do You Dream? With L. A. Sprague

What if the loudest voice questioning your pain is your own? We open the Halftime Q&A with a brave question—how to tell if you’re exaggerating—and get honest about self-trust, integrity, and the quiet courage of listening to your body. From there, we tackle the push-or-rest dilemma with a practical day-to-day approach that respects both progress and limits, and we share simple scripts that help friends ask about illness without making us defend our reality.

We also define what “chronic” really means and why that definition shapes treatment plans, expectations, and mental health. L. A. shares her POTS journey, including the role of ivabradine and midodrine, hydration and electrolytes, compression, and the steady power of sleep and gentle exercise. Along the way, she talks about dreams that changed—missions work, music tours—and the new purpose that grew in their place: creating a space where believers with chronic illness can be seen, heard, and encouraged.

Money and work get candid attention too. We talk reduced hours, insurance worries, and medical bills, naming both the fear and the discipline it takes to budget well. Finally, we sit with the relief and grief of diagnosis—the validation that clears a path forward and the heartbreak of a life you didn’t choose. If you’ve wrestled with self-doubt, wondered how to support someone you love, or needed practical POTS management tips wrapped in faith and realism, this one meets you where you are.

If the conversation helps, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs it. Your comments and questions guide future Q&As—send them our way on socials @CWCIPodcast or email cwcipodcast@gmail.com.

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Transcript

L. A. Sprague 0:00

I'm your Jesus loving and potty host, L. A. Sprague. Welcome to Christians with Chronic Illnesses. Hello everyone. I hope that you're having a wonderful new year and I want to hear all of your new year's resolutions. One of mine is for this new halftime show. Welcome to Christians with Chronic Illnesses. I'm so happy that you're

New Year Welcome & Show Format

L. A. Sprague 0:34

listening. And as you probably know, the main format of Christians with Chronic Illnesses is that I interview believers who have incurable diseases and hear their story, ask them questions. You know how it goes. It's an interview. Well, until we get more guests and also a wider budget to produce the podcast every single week with extensively long episodes. I'm going to be doing this kind of bi-weekly, you know, halftime show for Christians with chronic illnesses where I'm going to be answering your questions and possibly talking about different topics. If you have any ideas of what you would like to hear me talk about regarding chronic illness and Christian belief, please comment below or reach out to me on any platform. Feel

Why A Biweekly Halftime Q&A

L. A. Sprague 1:22

free to PM me, send something in the comments, or email us at cwcipodcast at gmail.com. I highly encourage you, if you're just tuning in, check out some of the former episodes where I interview believers with chronic illnesses. They are so encouraging and very, very honest. Some of them are a bit harder to hear because they're heavier in certain areas. But one thing that's in common, I think, with these people with chronic illnesses is their faith despite being sick, probably permanently. In the meantime, welcome to the halftime show. And again, seriously, I'm so honored to be reading your guys' comments and questions.

How To Send Questions

L. A. Sprague 2:04

I love them and fully welcome them. If you have any input or like advice, whatever you hear these comments and these questions, and you're a chronically ill person, I would love for you to respond to the listeners as well. I'm chronically ill, and if you're chronically ill, let's give people a bigger perspective of how we're feeling and what we're thinking together. Our first question is from Mimi Her U3Z from YouTube. And they ask, How do you know you're not exaggerating? How do you know if the pain really is bad? Or you can slash should just push through it. How do you know you're not faking it? Okay, this is an excellent question. I mean, there's several parts here. You asked, How do I know if I'm not exaggerating it? Basically, how do you know for first half? How do you know you're not faking? Boy. Okay. So that's a great question.

Listener Question: Am I Exaggerating?

L. A. Sprague 2:58

This is just me personally answering from my experience. So feel free to take it with a grain of salt. I think that how you can know if you're exaggerating or not is do you typically, whether you're sick or not, like whether you have a chronic illness or not, are you someone who typically is more of a hypochondriac? Are you someone who likes to kind of string out stories a little longer or skew the details a bit or bit more than they should? Are you someone who doesn't have integrity? When you work, you're not a very hard worker, you're not a very honest worker. If these are the case, then it could be possible that you're exaggerating. It doesn't mean, of course, that just because you're a bad worker or because you're not the greatest at telling the truth that you are exaggerating, because dishonest people can have real chronic illnesses too. But if you are someone who generally is hardworking and is not typically an exaggerator of your pain, that doesn't mean that you have to be someone who like always pushes away your pain, right? But if typically you're pretty honest with yourself and you are learning to know your body well, I would say trust yourself. And also, I think it might be rare that we think ourselves into having pain or symptoms. So though it's definitely possible the mind is extremely powerful, that we can talk ourselves maybe potentially into certain illnesses because of how we're treating ourselves, you know, the way that we're living, the way that we are thinking. Sure. I think that you need to listen to your body. And if you are fearing that you're exaggerating because you're scared that other people think you're exaggerating, don't, no, no, no, no, no. Don't don't listen to that. You yourself know your body. You're living in your own experience. And so you need to really think to yourself, ask yourself honestly, do I have integrity? Am I a hard worker? Do I generally exaggerate, or am I genuinely a pretty honest person? And if so, then okay, right now this pain that I'm feeling is real. And again, even if you're dishonest, you can have genuine pain too. So I think exaggerating is like, I think it's an intentional thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think exaggerating is is intentional. And so definitely trust yourself, give yourself some grace, and listen to your body. And if you are someone listening who thinks, oh, I actually am not generally a good worker, I'm actually a pretty lazy person, and I know that about myself. I'm pretty, you know, often telling half-truths and such, but I do have this genuine pain. Okay, good. Again, listen to that pain, but maybe fix the way that you're living so that people can see that you're generally a trustworthy person and will also trust, hopefully, what you're going through. I think the second part of this question is a little trickier because you're asking, how do I know when I should and should not push myself? That's hard because sometimes both the poison and the anecdote to feeling chronic illness symptoms is exercise. And sometimes you do need to push through a bit, you know, that's what exercise is, right? It's you're exercising, you're tearing, you're growing. But other times you need to listen to your body and slow down because you're gonna make it worse if you don't listen to yourself. So this is really tricky, and I would say just take it on a day-to-day basis. Honestly, take it day to day. And if you realize that you're having a pattern of slothfulness and not trying, then maybe give yourself a little nudge. If you're realizing that you're pushing yourself way too hard, then perhaps give yourself some rest.

When To Push Through Or Rest

L. A. Sprague 6:50

It's just a day-to-day journey. Again, this is like from my perspective personally, I'm not a professional doctor or anything. And I hope that people listening will, I hope you guys will maybe give this person a little bit of advice and perspective of your journey with your chronic illness if you have one, or if you've seen someone with one, or if you're a doctor. My rule of thumb would be like take a day to day, have some balance, push yourself every now and again, and every now and again, cut yourself some slack. Question two is from an anonymous messenger. Messenger? Okay. My question is do you like when and if people ask you about your chronic illness? I imagine others would feel bad asking, but the chronically ill person might be wishing that someone would ask them about it. I think this also varies person to person. If you're asking me personally, do I like being asked about my chronic illness? I think it depends on the day and depends how it's carried out. Generally, I don't mind, and it's appreciated if people want to understand.

How To Ask About Illness Kindly

L. A. Sprague 8:00

But sometimes if you just ask a question without any, you know, disclaimer or reasoning of why you're asking the question, it can sound like you're just questioning the integrity or the reality of our chronic illness. For example, if you want to ask someone why can't you eat gluten and they have a chronic illness, that's fine. But the way that you phrase it is really important. Maybe you could say, hey, I was just curious how it works. Why can't you eat gluten? Or how does gluten affect your chronic illness? I believe you, I'm just curious as to how it works. I think the way that people frame this question can really help us who are chronically ill feel like we don't have to defend ourselves or our state of health, and actually helps us to feel like you'll be intentional. So yeah, I I think generally people with chronic illnesses maybe first ask that person directly, do you mind if I ask you a question about your chronic illness? Ask them first. And if they say yes, then they're probably ready. And if they say no, then maybe they're still trying to figure out what's going on with themselves, or maybe they're not confident in the answer. Whatever the reason, it's always great to ask permission first. And again, maybe just layering your question with a bit of trust. Question three, Boomi9 on YouTube said, What does the word chronically mean? I don't know words larger than two syllables. Fam, I'm gonna be honest, I don't know the dictionary definition of chronic. I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna tell you what I think first, and then we're gonna look it up together, okay, chat. Okay, so how I would explain chronically is something that lasts lifelong, but I think there's a more specific definition of it. So let's figure it out together, fam. According to Google,

What “Chronic” Really Means

L. A. Sprague 9:54

chronically in relation to an illness is in a persistent and recurring way, in a long-lasting or habitual and problematic way. So, how I would define chronic is incurable, potentially lasting lifelong, and yeah, being there a long time, possibly without a cure out of sight. Good question. Okay, this fourth question. I really do want to hear your guys' thoughts on this one because it's so sweet. Skilly Crafters on YouTube asks, what's something you always wanted? I don't know about always. I can give you two main things I can think of. Okay. Again, this is me personally. Please comment. If you're chronically ill, please comment your thoughts on what is something that you've always dreamed of. Me personally, the first one I can think of is when I was 15 years old. I really wanted to become a missionary. Ever since getting chronically ill, that dream has slowly faded

Dreams Changed By Illness

L. A. Sprague 10:56

out of sight, which I have finally learned to accept. Still hard to say. The second one is even when I was young, I dreamed of being a big pop star artist. Actually, one thing that motivated me to record this episode was I had just watched Taylor Swift, The End of an Era. So good, shameless plug. I'm not being supported, but you know, Taylor, if you want to reach out, let me know. Anyways, but but just I love I love the stage, I love singing, and I love the connection and the movement that music brings. And so that's something that I dreamed of for a while too, was being an artist. And yeah, I have produced music under LA Sprague and I've done two shows, which were so cool. I literally thinking back that I've done that is insane because I had such bad stage fright that I had to work out of it, and I thank God for that process. But man, that was a lot of work, and I realistically don't think that I could do a tour. Um, yeah, I actually like I don't know, I might cut this up, but I was reached out to by a small music agency in New York, and I just can't take the opportunity, and I because I don't think that that's something that I can pursue right now with my health and possibly never. So though I am enjoying producing music every now and again, I don't think it's going to be my main goal. So those are some things that I've dreamed of and some dreams that have kind of slipped away. But I suppose a third dream that I could put out there is I have really dreamed to change the world. I have really dreamed to impact people with the love of Jesus in really big ways and in special creative ways too. And so this podcast is kind of a fruition of that. So tell me guys, what are what are some things that you've dreamed of? Thanks for this question. So good. Maddie Page. Uh question five. I think right, guys. Okay. How does chronic illness affect your financial situation? Bruh. This is personal. Very personal. It's not good. It's not good. It's not horrible. Okay, we're blessed. We're we're sustained. I am currently not able to work a full-time job and hardly a part-time job. So financially, things are very tight, and I would be lying if I didn't say that the podcast was a hope to provide some income for our small family of two. I was recently married to Paul, he's great. Financially, it's tight, and as of right now, I've got great insurance until probably next year, and that's when I'm a little scared of how finances will pan out with medication and doctor visits. So right now we're kind of in the middle ground of like we're like, you know, we're we're comfortable, but we're definitely disciplined. Gotta be disciplined in budget. Yeah, that's a good question. And I I saw somebody

Money, Work, And Medical Bills

L. A. Sprague 14:19

post that they had millions or no, was it a quarter million or half a million, something of dollars in debt because of medical expenses? Guys, that ripped my heart out. I was like, no, no, that's terrifying to me. That's utterly terrifying. So I know that a lot of people with chronic illnesses are not in great spaces financially because they can't work, because getting disability is a very tricky and long process, especially for those of us with unseen disabilities. And yeah, doctor bills and medical bills are insane. But I am grateful for where I'm at. I'm very grateful for my husband who works very hard for us, and I'm grateful for you guys, for those of you who do contribute to the podcast, it means so much. Thank you. Okay, number six. Also, Maddie, are you big into researching your chronic illness and treatments? What does that look like? What treatments have worked, not worked for your chronic illness? Again, I can only speak of me personally. I was diagnosed with POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. And before I was diagnosed, and probably a bit after, I was very, very hyperfixated on doing research on the chronic illness because I needed to know what it was before I was diagnosed. I did a test at home for POTS, which is a little dangerous

Researching POTS And Treatments

L. A. Sprague 15:45

if you do have POTS. But that's where you just stand up against the wall and you keep track of your heart rate for 10 minutes, basically. And inshallah, hopefully, you don't pass out. So definitely tricky, but yeah, I I did research quite a bit. My ER, my ER doctor that I had seen, um, recommended that it could be pots, and so I looked into some videos. I knew some friends from high school who had it, so I reached out to one of them asking for some advice, and she was very encouraging. She's in remission and living a pretty healthy life, so very happy for her. I have gotten my pots to be pretty well managed because of medication. I'm on midadrine and evabradine. Evabradine has been an absolute godsend. I love evabradine, and also trying some natural remedies like working out, sleep schedule, eating well, etc. A few years ago, when I was pretty active and I was eating well, lots and lots of salads, and always having my lovely electrolytes, taking my medication, moving regularly, sleeping very strictly with sleep routines. That's probably when I was at my healthiest with pots. I'm currently at a pretty good state right now, and I'm very thankful for that. The medication, I think, is a huge part. Seriously, cannot stress how much of Aberdeen has helped me personally. And I do go on some trends where it's like, I'll go, you know, we tried gluten dairy free for a bit. I'm starting that up again this year with the dairy free and exercising regularly. I think surrounding yourself by people that understand you is very, very important for both your physical and mental health. And also having things to help manage symptoms. So for me, that means having pickles in my fridge almost all the time and drinking at least one packet of electrolytes a day. So for me, I haven't really looked into much treatments otherwise. I mean, I wear compression socks as well, but because it's pretty decently managed, I mean it's still not to the point that I can work a full-time or part-time job, and it does hinder my exercise still. But I feel decently like I'm at a good place with it. I'm not collapsing anymore, and I seldom feel, you know, like I'm gonna pass out anymore. So for me personally, that's just meant managing symptoms like lowering caffeine, upping water intake, etc. So I don't do a ton of research anymore. When I hear people's stories that I'm interviewing and they tell me about their chronic illness, and I hear them say symptoms that I'm very familiar with in my life, then I'll do a bit of research, maybe talk to my doctor. But at this point in phase with my chronic illness, I have kind of accepted it and I'm trying more natural remedies on top of medication. But if you're listening and you are doing more research on your chronic illness or you're not diagnosed, I'd love to hear more about your journey. If you can't afford doctors and you're finding ways to research and to get advice, please let us know because doctors are expensive. But again, you should see a doctor if you can, because it's very important. They've studied stuff we haven't, and pharmacists know medications better than we do. So do your research and see a doctor if you can. This next question is from my grandma, Gloria Weimer. She says, From the time you started being ill, how long was it before you were diagnosed? Again, for me personally, I had a very, very fortunate journey. I probably started experiencing symptoms in late 2021, early 2022, and I Had my POTS diagnosis by July of 2022, which means it probably took me six to nine months max to get my diagnosis. So I am very fortunate that the

Diagnosis Timeline And Validation

L. A. Sprague 20:12

ER doctor was familiar with POTS and that I was able to see my doctor who took me seriously and got me to a cardiologist, who then got me to a neurologist later. So there were some complications with that because the cardiologist had then been advised by his nurse practitioner that he doubted the diagnosis. So then I was sent to a neurologist who specializes more in chronic illnesses, who totally validated I absolutely have POTS and gave me the medication that's actually helping me today. So it's a little complicated. It was technically six to nine months. But then with the complications of the discrepancy between the doctors, I didn't get the official like yes and diagnosis on paper probably till about 2023, 2024. So now we're looking at, you know, yeah, I guess one to two, two to three years. So I was very fortunate that for me it happened pretty rapidly. But I've heard that average diagnoses can be five to seven. So if you are trying to figure out what's going on, hang in there. I love this next one from Gloria. She asks, Was it a relief to finally get a diagnosis? And the answer is yes and no. The answer is yes because at least when you get that diagnosis, it's like oh, okay, at least it's not something worse, right? Like, at least I'm going to live. At least my life is not at risk. At least this is, you know, something that can hopefully be managed. But it's also

Relief And Grief After Diagnosis

L. A. Sprague 22:06

kind of devastating because your whole life can change. For example, I wanted to be an English teacher overseas or be a singer. And my life has changed drastically. I was a career woman and loved working with refugees. And now I'm at the point where I can't really hold a full-time job. And that can be devastating. You know, it can be hard when a lot of people with chronic illnesses will go from being the life of the party, someone that's really energetic and optimistic and hardworking, to now they've had to lay down their career and become a different person. They've had to learn how to become content with being homebodies, being people that maybe just going to the gym for an hour takes out the amount of energy for someone else of working an eight-hour shift. So it's both encouraging because now you know what to do next, right? You know, okay, how can I alleviate for me, for example, how can I alleviate pot symptoms? What are some things I should stop or start eating? What are some things I should stop or start doing, right? It's comforting because you have an answer and you have some form of control, but it's also devastating because your whole life has changed. The whole person that you are, even, might have changed to an extent. Okay. I'm not saying that you're your chronic illness, but like it's a it's a big difference when you're typically someone who's very outgoing and extroverted, and now you're someone, like I said, who's who's a homebody. Those are different people, right? You might go from being someone who's energized by people to someone who isn't. And that's just change, right? You you change. And if you know, I've seen people that have lost their careers in being a doctor, I've seen people that have lost their careers in being a dancer, and it's like a dream dies, right? And that's that's heartbreaking. And so the answer to your question, it wasn't relieving to get a diagnosis, yes and no. Yes, and that thank God it's not worse. Thank God that now I can look into ways to to heal where it can, and no, and that it's devastating that this isn't something that's just gonna go away, that you can take medication or have treatment, and in a little while you're better. This is something that for the rest of your life you now have to figure out how to live around. I think that's all the questions that I'm gonna answer today for the halftime show. Thank you so much for being here. And please, if you have any questions, please, please, please let me know on any of our socials or comment below. I love you guys so much. I'm really looking forward to hearing your response to these questions that were asked, and I'm also really looking forward to hearing more from you and answering more of your questions. Thank you for being a part of the Christians with Chronic Illnesses community and for tuning in to our podcast. Please follow, rate, and subscribe on Apple

Closing Thanks & How To Support

L. A. Sprague 25:24

Podcasts, Spotify, and Patreon. You can also follow our socials at CWCI Podcast. If you're interested in sharing your God given story, we'd love for you to email us at cwcipodcast at gmail.com. This podcast cannot substitute for medical help and is purely for encouragement and entertainment. Please see your doctor before trying anything mentioned on this show.